


Forget the Dragon

by ladykiki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e07 Bad Boys, Gen, On the Run, Pre-Series Sam Winchester, Supernatural Summergen Fic Exchange 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 21:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14657061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykiki/pseuds/ladykiki
Summary: Written for Supernatural summergen 2017. With Dad hunting and Dean gone, Sam has to manage on his own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyryk (s_k)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/gifts).



> So you know how it takes almost a year after you've gotten permission to repost a thing to actually repost a thing? I do. This was actually my submission for the 2017 supernatural summgen gift exchange. Sign-ups are curently open for this year's gift exchange. The last day to sign-up is May 19th, so if you're interested, you should go do that. 
> 
> The title is from Richard Siken's Siken’s _Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out._
> 
> Oh, and it fills the "on the run" square on my hurt/comfort bingo card. Of which I did not make bingo before time ran out. But it still filled it!
> 
> Enjoy!

Prompt: Preseries – why did wee!Sam appear so nonchalant when Dean had been sent to the home for boys and was supposedly missing? I’d love something along the lines of John having to wipe Sam’s memory or doing something drastic to make him stop panicking about what had happened to Dean.

*  
*

Sam finished the last problem on his math homework and flipped the book closed, then his notebook, stacking them neatly before looking up—and frowning. 

The house was dark. Sometimes Dean wouldn’t turn on the lights if he was watching a horror movie, but the house was quiet, too, no screams or growls or cheesy music drifting into the kitchen from the TV in the living room. Sam listened closely, but there were no sounds at all, just the house—being. 

“Dean?” he called, his voice sudden and small and still, somehow, too loud. 

Nothing. 

There should have been something, though. Right? His stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t had dinner yet as he searched out the clock, but he didn’t need the green 7:39 staring back at him to know it was late. Too late. Dean was supposed to have been right behind him. He was just going to run to the Market, get them something for dinner, then come home. He’d left right after school. 

Anxious, Sam pushed up, clinging to the back of the chair like it could protect him from the dark. Because what if Dean had come home? What if something had gotten him when he came in and Sam just hadn’t noticed? It could still be out there, waiting, ready to pounce on him the moment he left the kitchen, ready to eat him.

Dean wouldn’t have gone quietly, though. Sam would have heard him. He always yelled when he got home, and he would’ve yelled louder if there’d been a monster. So if he wasn’t here, he never made it home. “Dean?”

Sam trailed close to the wall when he padded across the floor, trailing his hand over the light switch when he passed so light flooded out behind him. He checked the whole house, turning on the lights as he went, but there was definitely no Dean and no sign of Dean. 

If Sam hadn’t come home when he was supposed to, Dean would’ve immediately gone looking for him. Sam wasn’t supposed to go out alone, though, especially not after dark. And if something happened, he was supposed to call Dad. 

Just—he didn’t _know_ something had happened. Sure, it wasn’t like Dean to disappear, but he could have met some girl—Rebecca Witherspoon, maybe, he’d been talking about her—and gotten talking and lost track of time. Maybe she’d convinced him to go back to her place, and maybe that was in the wrong direction, and maybe he had a really long walk to get back home. 

Or maybe a monster got him and Sam would never know.

He’d been hesitating, but now he grabbed his knife and a flashlight, fished the key out of the bowl by the door and locked up behind him. It wouldn’t hurt anything for Sam to walk up to the Market, just to check. If he didn’t find Dean between here and there, he could call Dad. 

He clicked on the flashlight and started walking. 

*

It was a short walk. The Market was less than a quarter mile from their rental house, doorstep-to-doorstep, along Forestburgh Road. Dean would’ve gone that way, continuing straight after Sam split off, but Sam took the backway, cutting through their neighbors’ yards in a more-or-less straight line, because that’s the way Dean would have taken to come back. 

He looked, but he never saw movement, never glimpsed Dean's familiar silhouette. 

There weren’t any wooded areas between the Market and the Colony for Dean to get lost in, not that Dean usually got lost, but Sam called his name, anyway, in case he’d fallen and broken his leg, or one of the neighbors had locked him in the cellar. You learned a lot of unpleasant possibilities researching the missing and dead.

Dean didn’t answer, which was maybe good or maybe just meant he was unconscious. Sam felt cold and jittery by the time he reached the Market’s parking lot. There weren’t many cars out, the blues and blacks and greens hard to differentiate in the dark, but none of them were the Impala and Dean didn’t have a car, so it didn’t matter. When he tried the Market door, he found it open, and pushed through. 

It felt empty. It didn’t look any different, though, had the same tall, rich wooden shelves gathered close and filled with stuff, a low ceiling, fluorescent lights, three stand-alone checkout lanes, stacks of fruit, bright white tile floors. But where it had felt cozy when he'd come in with Dean, now it was claustrophobic, the air pressing too close, the shelves too close, the rest of the room too big, hollowed out like the bottom of his stomach. 

He made himself keep walking anyway, even when he caught the eye of a guy older than dad in the Market's red vest. He had furrows in his brow, a big nose, and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Sam's too big sweatshirt and overcoat. 

Sam ducked his head to avoid his eyes, letting his too-long bangs shield him, and headed straight for the back of the store. He didn't run into Dean on the way. At the back of the store, he walked quickly, glancing down each aisle, hoping for a glimpse of bristly blond hair. He reached the end and turned back.

The older guy appeared at the end of the aisle, broom at his side like a staff. Sam hunched his shoulders and kept moving, feeling like he was doing something wrong, but he wasn’t. The feeling wound his guts tighter with every aisle the guy paced him to. 

He jerked to a halt when a girl about Dean's age, sweet faced, with a perky blond ponytail passed by. She had a trash bag with her and offered him a smile before disappearing through the Staff Only doors. She was the kind of pretty Dean usually waxed poetically about, and he thought she looked vaguely familiar. But he didn't want to think about what it meant that his brother wasn't hanging around her trying to be smooth. 

The Glaring Guy got him moving again, suspicious stare forbidding. If the guy—the manager, probably, or maybe the owner—had stared at Dean that way, it might explain why his brother wasn't here. 

It didn't explain where he'd gone, though, and that was really what Sam cared about.

He left under the glare of the same dark eyes and wasn't surprised when the door was locked behind him. Two cars were missing from the parking lot, and Sam kept walking forward, straight through the parking lot to the road. There weren't any sidewalks, but there wasn't much traffic, either. He stared down the road, toward The Colony, looking for any sign of Dean, and his gut clenched when he didn't find any. 

The other direction wasn't any better, the road disappearing into darkness even before it curved out of sight. There were plenty of trees and places to get lost that way, and no way for Sam to search them alone, in the dark. If Dean was there, he'd have to wait for Dad. 

The thought made Sam's chest feel tight, his stomach sick. He turned away from it, back to the Market. He saw movement through the windows and started circling left, away from their temporary home and the door the manager/owner would likely use, drawn to the last place he had to look like a compass to north. 

Monsters didn't usually hide bodies in dumpsters—they didn't usually hide them at all—but people did. Dread dragged his feet the closer he got, prompted him to hug the wall. That, and habit. _We do what we do and we shut up about it_ included being stealthy so people didn’t see them where they weren’t supposed to be.

Then he realized he could hear voices. The electric shock-jolt of hope stole his breath a moment, even as his ears strained to differentiate the voices. There was a mix of girls and guys, multiples of each, but he couldn't pick out Dean's and couldn’t tell how many. He approached the corner quicker than his dad would've liked, but he needed to find Dean. 

Caution kept him from bursting out into the open, though. Instead, he stopped at the corner and slowly peeked around the edge. There were five girls and four boys. One of the girls was the blonde who'd smiled at him, her vest draped over the closed dumpster. Two other girls, both brunettes, had vests, but only one of the guys did. They were all about Dean's age, definitely high schoolers, but Dean wasn't among them. 

This was turning into the unfunniest game of _Where’s Waldo_ ever. 

He was about to turn away—they were smoking, and it looked like the bulk of the group had been there awhile—when the tallest guy pulled the joint from his lips and said, "Were you here when Winchester got arrested?" 

That stopped him. Shock— _arrested? Dean?_ —quickly changed to dread and anger as the others laughed. 

Amid the laughter, the blonde smacked the tall guy, said, "That's not funny, Brian. He probably needed that stuff."

"Then he should have paid for it," one of the brunettes chimed in. 

"You think they'll beat him for it?" the guy in the vest asked, laughter in his voice. 

It was a joke, Sam knew it was a joke, but he must've made a sound because the blonde's head came up, blue eyes locking immediately on Sam. Something about them was off. He backed up, but she moved faster. 

"You're Dean's brother," she said, "aren't you?"

He stopped but she didn’t, pinned in place by the eyes of her friends. She held her hands between them like she was trying to calm a spooked animal. Sam felt like a spooked animal. If he’d had a tail, it would’ve been tucked between his legs, and that was stupid. He was being stupid. They were just kids, like him. He pushed his sleeves back to clear his hands. Still felt small. "Did Dean really get arrested?"

She grimaced, lips pulling into a sad smile. "I'm sorry. Mr. Hewlett caught him. You didn't. . . ?"

He shook his head quickly. The idea sloshed around his brain, churning unpleasantly. They were supposed to be keeping their heads down, not getting into fights and not drawing attention. Arrested was drawing attention. Dad would kill him. 

Did Dad know?

"I'm sorry.” She’d gotten closer while he wasn’t paying attention, close enough to reach out and touch. "Where's you dad?" Her fingers brushed the back of his hand.

Sam jolted back like he'd been shocked. "I should go," he told the weird looks. _Don’t draw attention_ , but it was probably too late for that. 

The girl didn’t try to touch him again. He studied her face, trying to figure out if Dean had talked about her, if he should offer her something. But he didn’t know what, and if Dad got home to find Sam out after dark and Dean not there, Sam would be in PT until he died. So he gave a small as he back away, two steps, then three, until he'd doubled the distance between them, then tripled it. 

He hesitated before turning away, though, bit his lip. "Do you know where the jail is?" he asked finally. 

"That way." She jerked his head towards the Colony. "Turn right on Broadway. It's at the corner of Pleasant Street."

"Thanks." He shoved his hands in his sweatshirt's pouch, wrapping one hand around the flashlight, the other around his pocketknife, then left. He listened footsteps following him, but none did. Instead, they started talking again.

_"You going to visit him in jail, too?"_ one of the guys asked.

_”Maybe_ , the blonde answered coyly.

_"Try not to run this one off."_

*

He should have gone home. That was where Dad would go after he picked up Dean. That was where he would expect Sam to be. But that temporary house wasn't home without Dean there, and the fear wasn't gone. Less, different—but not gone. More than anything, he just wanted to see that Dean was okay with his own two eyes. So he started walking. 

It was a long walk. Only two miles, but with no sidewalks along Forestburgh, in the dark, with fear and anxiety playing tricks on Sam's mind, and needing to stay out of sight of the few passing cars, it felt like climbing Mount Doom. 

Dean would've laughed at the comparison, would've mussed Sam's hair and scoffed, "This? Naw, this is nothing but a country stroll, Sammy. Don't be a pussy." And Sam would’ve pushed him. It wouldn’t have done anything, but it would’ve made him feel better. ‘Course, he wouldn’t be out here at all if Dean were with him.

His insides felt hot, but his hands and feet were cold, and his cheeks were numb. His mind kept running around in circles, bouncing between questions like the small shaft of light from his flashlight over uneven ground. Was Dean okay? Had something happened to him in jail? Had he already been released? Was he out looking for Sam? Dad might've picked him up and taken him home before Sam ever got there.

He hadn't heard the Impala, though, and the Impala wasn’t quiet. And Dad wasn't supposed to be back for a couple days yet. Even if they'd given Dean his phone call right away, Dad probably wouldn’t have made it back yet.

That knowledge didn't stop part of Sam from pulling to go back to the house. 

He hadn’t thought about what it would take to get in to see Dean as a minor without a guardian, not until he stood in front of the brick building. 

It squatted like a fortress on the corner of Pleasant and Broadway, somehow dark even with the lights showing through the windows. The building came right up to the road, the parking lot behind it, off of Pleasant. Sam walked around it, but there were no fences. Lights shone through the glass doors leading to reception, but the other doors were steel and locked. Reception was a landmine of open floor, blocked off from the rest of the building by a high counter. Sam could've climbed it if he had to, even though it came up to his chin, but there was no way the agents behind it would’ve let him.

He didn’t know what to do. Dean might've been old enough for cops to be okay with him being home alone, but Sam was only eleven. They'd call Dad and then Child Protective Services, and Dad would make them leave, even though Sam was supposed to be in the school Spelling Bee in a month. No, if he wanted to see Dean, he had to do it without alerting the cops. 

Ducking out of the sight when two uniforms came out, he watched them climb into one of the squad cars and pull away. Then he went looking. He found a couple barred windows that were too high to reach, even if he jumped, a ventilation shaft that was way too small, and—his heart leaped—a window with a dumpster under it, nothing but trees to bear witness.

Perfect. 

Getting up was tricky. The top was over his head, and he had to be quiet to keep from drawing attention. The dumpster wasn't flush against the wall but was pulled out about two feet, and that made getting up both easier and harder. But once he got up, he was able to use the wall to balance. He placed his feet carefully when shuffling over to the window.

He slid in front of it slowly to keep from drawing attention, and to try to see anyone who might catch him before they saw him. Dean wouldn't give him away—if Dean was really there, if this was the room where they had him, if—but he couldn't be sure of anyone else. 

The first thing he saw was bars. Then there was the sleeve of a leather jacket that made his lungs seize before he realized it was the wrong color and too big and had a skull-and-crossbones painted on the back. The guy had a shaved head and a red-and-white bandana around his neck. Sam could only see his face in profile, but he was glaring at something out of Sam’s eye line. Automatically, Sam shifted to see what he was looking at.

"You don't want your face caved in, you'll leave the kid alone," Skull-and-crossbones growled.

He appeared to be talking to a man in a suit who had squinty, dark liquid eyes. The suit rang his hands together, hunched and shrinking and guilty, but that didn’t stop his eyes from darting eagerly over Skull-and-crossbones’ shoulder.

Sam craned the other way to see who they were talking about.

_Dean._

His brother slouched on the bench, face set in stubborn, challenging lines, arms crossed, and legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, too. It wasn’t the way he usually sat, even when he was pretending to be confident, but it also wasn’t how he sat when he was in pain. And Sam couldn’t see any bruises, so that was good. 

"I didn't do anything," the Suit said. 

Dean’s muscles locked tight like he was trying not to shift, then, and Sam wished he could get him out. Wished he was old enough to pretend to be Dad the way Dean sometimes did. Though, not in person. Sam didn’t think even Dean could pretend to be Dad in person.

"Maybe you should turn around, go hide in your corner, and not even think of looking at the kid, or I'll cave your face in anyway." The biker flexed a thickly muscled arm, and Sam thought he could do it. The Suit squeaked. Apparently, he did, too. That made Sam feel a little better. 

Something shuffled off to the side of the building. 

Sams's head whipped around. It unsettled his balance, and his feet slipped. He grabbed frantically for the ledge. His feet went out from under him and his stomach swooped, heart leaping into his throat. The brick scraped his hands, digging sharp, then he slammed into the side of the jail. His breath rushed form his lungs, chin clipping the wall. He scraped his fingers when they slipped off the ledge. 

He hit the ground on his heels, his balance behind him, and stumbled head-first into the back of the dumpster, the metallic clang louder than the one in his head. It was louder still when the rest of him connected, but not loud enough to drown out the alarmed voices filtering through the window.

"What the--?"

"What're you doing in here?"

"There's something out there!"

Still dazed, Sam tipped forward, got his hands under him, then his knees, scrambling to his feet with no grace and no thought beyond _away_. Open sidewalk stretched out every direction but one, and Sam pushed off the dumpster, haring off for the trees. 

Dean would never forgive him if CPS took him away because he was stupid enough to get caught. 

His sneakers slapped the concrete—too loud, too loud—but he didn't dare slow down, needing distance more than he needed quiet. His ears strained back toward the jail, listening for slamming doors, for shouts, for rushing feet or dogs, but he hit the dirt sixteen feet later, leaves and twigs crunching underfoot with nothing but his heart pounding in his head. 

Visibility dropped off sharply away from the lights, under the foliage. His breath pushed back at him. His eyes strained.

He slammed into the tree before he saw it, yelping in surprise from the sharp flare of pain in his wrist. He looked back. There trees between him and the jail. It might be enough. 

He froze as he caught movement and saw one of the officers investigating, pacing slowly past the dumpster. Sam swallowed hard and forced his muscles to stay still, left hand clenched around the flashlight he'd need if the cop spotted him. When the cop crouched by where he'd fallen, Sam slowly drifted back and around the nearest tree. If he could see the cop, possibly the cop could see him. Adrenaline juddered through him, worse when the guy twisted to scan the trees, dark gaze moving slowly over every inch. 

Automatically, Sam's right hand found the knife in his pocket, clenched around the handle. He wouldn't use it, not on a cop, but it made him feel better—less helpless. 

The seconds crawled by and he counted them until, with a shrug, the cop pushed to his feet, opened the door, and headed back inside, shaking his head at whatever was said to him. The door shut behind him with a barely audible clang. 

Sam slumped in relief. Dad was going to kill him. 

He was shaking with leftover adrenaline when he put his back to the tree and slid down its side, but he’d worry about that in a minute. He just needed a moment to process that the cop was gone, he was safe, Dean was safe and close, and everything was okay.

Well, as okay as it was going to get until Dad showed up.

He tipped his head back, staring up at the dark blanket of leaves blocking out the stars, and let his heart settle, his breathing slow. With his arms and legs pulled in close, he felt almost cozy, and part of him wanted to just stay where he was, go to sleep, and worry about everything later. Wait here until Dad came and got Dean. 

He couldn't, though. The cold crept in the longer he sat, stealing his ease and comfort, and reminding him he was alone in the dark, no walls or wards to keep him safe from the things that creeped in the night. He shivered, feeling like something had walked cold fingernails up his spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. 

Like remembering the dark things could summon them. 

Awkwardly, feeling cold and stiff, Sam pushed to his feet. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, but that only meant the shadows were deeper, more ominous. Any one of them could be a monster. 

_Don't be ridiculous, Sammy_ , he could almost hear Dean saying. _Nothing's going to get you._

"As long as I'm around," Sam murmured, finishing his older brother's oft repeated assurance, even that soft sound loud in the quiet rustling of spring breezes, and he shivered from more than cold. Dean wasn’t exactly around to make it true. 

He swayed, missing his brother's solid warmth to lean on, then set his jaw and clicked on the flashlight.

*

Sam kept his head down once he reached the sidewalk, kept his shoulders back and tried to walk like Dean—like he knew where he was going and had every right to be there. It wouldn't do much to disguise his age if anyone looked closely, but—as long as he made it past the police station without drawing attention—anyone who did would probably just insist on driving him home. He could have them drop him at Ms. Emily's. 

If Dean had been there, they could have just gone to her house for dinner. She'd offered to feed them more than once, but Dean didn't like taking hand-outs, or drawing attention to the fact that Dad was often gone. She'd ask too many questions, Dean insisted. In his more uncharitable moments, Sam wished she would. Wondered what it would be like if she took him and Dean in, took them away from Dad. 

The thought made his stomach hurt. 

He looked up, intending to check where he was in relation to the police station, to see if it was quiet enough for him to walk past or if he needed to avoid it, and stopped in surprise. 

There was someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at him. She wasn't particularly tall, he didn't think, but she was unnaturally skinny, her arms disproportionately long. Her face looked strangely flat, like a cartoon who'd been smashed and then only partially reinflated, her mouth a wide, lipless slit. 

_Unnatural_ , his lizard brain said. Awareness crawled up his spine, heightening his senses, and again he curled his hand around the knife. She didn't move, hands visible and empty at her sides, eyes dark and fixed with unsettling intensity. She wasn't wearing a jacket or long-sleeved shirt, her skinny arms bare. 

There was a street to Sam's left, across three lanes of traffic. Dean had said all the streets around here connected. 

He edged closer, using the motion to shift unobtrusively onto the balls of his feet. "Hi," he said, trying to take control of the situation, silently counting off the distance between them. _Twenty feet_. "Are you lost?"

"Well, well, well,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. Her lips split wide in what might generously have been termed a smile. "If it isn't Sam Winchester. Must be my lucky day."

It took every ounce of determination he had not to back away. "Who are you?"

A hint of gold flared across her dark eyes. "Let's just say I'm a friend of your father's. So irresponsible of him, by the way, leaving you out here all alone."

"I'm not alone." Her voice had a low, rasping quality that scraped across his nerves like sandpaper. He slid a glance past her, to the Police Station, without quite meaning to.

"Ah," she taunted lightly, "but Dean's a little occupied, isn't he?" She turned her head, focusing those unsettling eyes on the jail. On Dean.

He'd taken two steps before he even realized it, drawn forward like he posed any kind of threat, knife drawn and clenched at his side. It was more than Dean had. "Leave him out of it!"

Her smile was lazy as she turned her head back, her eyes bright, hungry. Yellow. "Oh, I'm not interested in Dean-o, Sammy. You, though. I've got plans for you."

His lips felt numb. " _What_ are you?" he managed. 

"Let's just say," she drawled, "that your father's been looking for me."

Then she disappeared, wiped away like she'd never been. 

*

Before he left, Dad said: “Sammy, stay with your brother. You don't go anywhere without him. Understand?"

Sam had, but Dad hadn’t anticipated Dean getting arrested. He hadn’t known and Sam hadn’t told him, and he had school. Not going to school would draw attention. 

He told himself that was the reason he went, not that he thought he’d go crazy if he had to bounce around the empty house alone, missing and worrying about Dad and Dean both. So he got up when he was supposed to, showered, dressed, and packed up his books, just like any other day, then made the trek to the elementary school. His stomach rumbled and it was longer and colder without Dean—quieter, too, since Sam didn't have anyone to talk to—but no one gave him a second look.

*

He was starting to feel like a ghost when Brian Thompson shoved him into the wall outside the gym. It was cinderblock and didn't give, and pain flared threateningly in Sam's wrist when his weight landed on it.

Dean would've pushed off the wall and shoved back, probably thrown a punch. Probably would've gotten expelled, too, and then the school would've had to call Dad. The last thing Sam needed was for the school to call Dad, even if he really, really wanted to throw that punch. 

He rolled off the wall away from Brian, setting his feet once he had the bully in sight, and scowled. “What do you want, Brian?” 

"Aww," the bully taunted, "if it isn't ickle Sammy Winchester. You running away, Freak? Gonna go cry to Mommy? Oh, wait. . . ."

The words hit like Brian wanted them to. But where he probably hoped Sam would start crying, it felt like a bomb had gone off in Sam's heart, expanding bright and hot through his chest, down his arms until they shook in fists, up over his vision, hazing it red. He wanted to break Brian's nose, wanted to feel the snap-pop of cartilage breaking, wanted to see the rush of blood pour down over Brian's stupid, sneering lips. He wanted to crack Brian's chest open, the way he'd cracked open Sam's. Nobody got to talk about Mom like that.

He wasn't sure what held him back. If it was Dad's No Fighting at School policy, or the knowledge that normal kids didn't want to break their classmates, or if he knew he'd start crying like Brian wanted him to if he moved, if he broke open that final dam. But he didn't move, and he didn't know what was on his face but, after a moment, Brian's faltered, and the bigger boy stepped back, scowling extra hard.

"Freak," he spat, and turned away. Sam did, too.

"No wonder that demon has plans for you."

Sam jolted, the anger washing out like it'd never been, and spun back. But Brian wasn't looking at him, hadn't turned or slowed, was too far away to have murmured those words in Sam's ear. He looked around, wondering if he'd misheard the voice, if someone else had said that, but there was no one else close enough. 

He ducked his head away from the looks and headed to class. 

*

He couldn't figure out why he thought he’d wanted to sit through school, though. His thoughts kept drifting to Dean, mentally retracing his steps back to the Police Station. He imagined walking in, asking to see Dean, being led back to the holding cell. 

Dean would've been slouched back against the wall, trying to be cool. When he saw Sam, he would’ve jumped to his feet with a smile, come up to the bars. "Hey, Sammy. Whatcha doing here, squirt?"

"I wanted to see you."

Dean would’ve cuffed his head and mussed his hair. "Why would you wanna do that? I'm gonna be out of here in no time. You'll see."

Or he could’ve sat out in the trees outside the station, keeping watch from afar. The woman was probably gone—

"Sam."

He jerked his head around to muffled laughter and looked up at Mrs. Carroll. "Since you've been paying such close attention, how about you pick up reading where Liza left off, hm?"

He ducked his head, eyes scanning the pages before him, but he knew they'd been read already. He flipped the page, but he couldn’t been listening. He couldn't even begin to guess how far they'd gotten. He looked at Mrs. Carroll helplessly. 

"I thought so. Remain seated, please." Then she returned to the front of the classroom. "Everyone else, you can line up for lunch." 

The clatter of twenty students pushing their chairs back eclipsed the sound of the door opening, but Sam saw her slip out of the room. He kept his hands folded on the desk, ignored the snide words from some of his classmates, and waited for her to come back. It didn’t take long

"Follow Mr. Dempsey, class,” she said. She stood by her desk while the students filed out. She smiled slightly, fondly, as they passed her, the way she usually watched him. The way he’d always thought a mother would. 

He ducked his head when the door closed and she finally turned her attention to him. He didn’t want to see the concerned pinch between her brows. But he stood obediently when she beckoned him over to her desk. 

"Is everything ok, Sam?” She was shorter than him when she sat at her desk chair. It made it harder to avoid her eyes. “It isn't like you to be so distracted."

"Everything's fine, Mrs. Carroll."

“Just fine?” she teased gently.

He nodded and kept his head down, even though Dean would’ve known that meant something was wrong. Mrs. Carroll probably didn’t know that.

But maybe she did. She leaned forward, trying to catch his eye. "Are you sure? I'm here to help, Sam. You can talk to me about anything, I promise."

He lifted his eyes. Her were soft and warm, encouraging, and he tried to imagine how she’d react if he told her Dad was away on a hunt and Dean was in jail and he’d had to go hungry last night and this morning because they didn’t have any money and it had been too late after he got home to bother Ms. Emily.

He didn’t have to try to imagine Dad’s reaction. "I'm ok."

"Ok," she agreed after a moment. Standing, she gestured him with her. "Come on. I'll walk you to the cafeteria."

She watched him expectantly as they approached the door, then stopped in front of it so he couldn’t pass. "Don’t you have to get your lunch?"

"Uh—"

His stomach growled. Dean would've said he had lunch money, but Sam hated lying and he hadn't been prepared to do it. His stomach felt like it was eating itself. A blush painted his cheeks. "I forgot it," he admitted. 

"I wish you would have told me sooner. We could have called your father—"

But Sam was already shaking his head. "He's working."

“I’m sure he could’ve worked something out.”

Sam just shook his head again. It made her mouth go tight, but she just said, “Alright. Wait here.” 

Stupidly, he did, watching curiously while she went back to her desk and pulled something out of her purse. When she came back, it was with five dollars folded between her fingers.

He stepped back. "I can't—"

"You can," Mrs. Carroll insisted. "Your dad’s not here, but I am. I don't let any of my students go hungry. _Capisce_?"

Bashfully, he let her place the money in his hands, folded his fingers tight around it, tight like his insides felt. "Thank you, Mrs. Carroll." He turned away.

"I could just eat your right up."

He whirled back, stumbling back into the cafeteria door, because he voice had sounded right beside his ear, a dark, rough rasp beneath it, doubling it. 

But Mrs. Carroll was already gone.

*

By the time the bell rang, Sam had never been more relieved to get out of school in his life. He kept thinking he heard things, like Tyrone hissing behind him about the monsters wanting him back, only to turn and find him slouched back in his seat, glazed eyes focused on Mrs. Carroll.

It'd taken him a minute to realize Sam was staring at him, then he'd frowned and defensively demanded, "What?"

Even if Tyrone were the type to talk bad about him and pretend ignorance after, Sam didn't think he'd bother to sell it. And even if he would or did, Bryce would never have been able to keep his mouth shut about it. But Bryce had looked just as clueless.

When he had everything packed away, he stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He wasn't surprised when one of his classmates immediately shoved past, knocking his bag off his shoulder and him into the desk. 

"What are the voices telling you now, Freak?" 

He’d never heard the kid speak before and wasn’t even sure he’d heard him now. He half-expected someone else to materialize behind him, just to bump into him. But no one did. After a moment, Sam resettled his backpack and followed the rest of the kids out. 

Someone shoved him into the doorjamb. “Watch it, Freak. Or the demon’s going to eat you.”

He turned his head quickly, but he couldn’t see who’d spoken.

"Everything ok, Sam?" Mrs. Carroll asked. She had that pinched look again, the one that made his insides squirm guiltily. 

"Yes, ma'am," he said, ducking out before she could ask anymore. The last thing he needed was his teacher to think he was going crazy.


	2. Chapter 2

*

He kept his head down on the way out of school, careful not to catch anyone’s eye or bump into them. It seemed to work at keeping him off everybody's radar, no one stopping him or talking to him.

Until he got to the front steps. 

A hard shove caught him between the shoulders. Unbalanced, he lunged forward. His foot caught the edge of the first stair and slipped. He fell, coming down hard on his hands and knees. His wrists buckled, and his chin clipped the concrete. His backpack slipped up and knocked the back of his head, causing his to hit his nose. Recoiling from the pain, his backpack dragged him to the side, eyes watering as everyone stared at him.

"What's-a-matter, Winchester? Can't walk on your own two feet?"

He looked back, saw shaggy blond hair topping a sneering face he couldn’t place but thought he’d seen somewhere. He slipped the straps of his back, stood to face this new enemy, tried to blink his eyes clear. "What do you want?"

"To teach you a lesson," the kid said. He had average features, dark eyes. Even know that Sam could see him clearly, he still didn't recognize him beyond vaguely remembering him being in his class. "You come in here, think you're so smart. Think you can just take over, wrap the teachers around you finger, and no one will know what you really are. But you're still just a freak."

"I'm not a freak!" Even if, right now, he felt like it. Even if he thought the kid was right. 

"Yeah, you are! You think you can hide it, but we see right through you!"

"Sam?" The voice sounded right next to his ear, loud and female, and Sam jerked around to face it. "Are you alright?"

It was the blonde from the Market, blue eyes wide and heart-shaped face concerned. "Yeah, just—"

But when he turned back to the kid at the top of the stairs, he wasn't there. The kids still streaming out of the front doors looked nothing like him. None of the kids walking past him had his wild thatch of hair.

"Who were you talking to?" she asked.

"What?"

"Before. Who were you talking to?"

Sam felt his stomach drop to his feet. Hesitantly, he asked, "You didn't—you didn't see him?"

She cast a skeptical glance up the stairs, eyes searching blankly. "See who?"

He looked around at the rest of the kids, but the one who hadn’t missed it were all looking at him, all giving him a wide birth and whispering behind their hands. Suddenly, it felt like someone was squeezing his chest, like giant hands had wrapped around him, the pressure growing every second. There had to have been someone there. Right? "I, uh—"

"Sam? Where's Dean?" Her eyes pinned him, expectant. "Isn't he going to walk you home?"

"No, he—" But what could he tell her? Why wasn't Dean there? Hadn't Dad come to get him yet? If Dad wasn't going to let Dean walk him home, the Impala should have been there. He scanned the waiting cars, hoping desperately for the big, black car. 

"Sam?"

It wasn’t there. And she was too close. He stepped back, stumbled over his backpack. 

"Sam, are you—?"

He dodged her reaching hand, snagging his backpack on the way past because Dad always said _Don't leave your gear behind_. "I've got to go," he said, using momentum to swing his bag up onto his back and lunging around the girl. The backpack was heavy, and it knocked him off course, but he kept moving, kept his head down to avoid the staring, the looks, and walked as fast as he could. It didn't stop the voices— _Freak!_ —but he kept going and, eventually, they faded behind him.

Mostly.

*

Sam ran part of the way home, backpack thumping hard against his back. The other kids' words circled through his head. _Freak. You’re a freak_. He couldn't tell if he felt claustrophobic, the world closing in around him until he couldn't breathe, or stretched too thin, pulled in too many different directions and struggling to hold himself together. 

_Freak!_

His wrists hurt, his knees and elbows and hands and chin stung, his nose throbbed. He missed Dean and Dad and couldn’t remember the first thing they’d talked about at school. Everything was falling apart, and he didn’t know _why_. It felt like he was losing his mind. 

 

Like he was spinning faster and faster, parts of him were breaking off, flying clear. 

_Did you see that?_

He needed Dean.

_Who the hell was he talking to?_

Dean always made everything make sense.

_Freak._

*

The Impala wasn't in the drive when Sam ran up. That wasn't really surprising—even if he’d hoped—because Dad was probably still busy with the hunt. But Dad still might have gotten Dean and dropped him at home, maybe with strict instructions not to leave the house. Anticipation thrummed low in his gut when he pushed the door open. 

"Dean?"

He listened closely, pausing just inside the door and holding his breath to catch even the faintest reply—but there was nothing, no rustling fabric from Dean pushing off the couch, no careless thud of footsteps from Dean strolling to meet him at the door, no murmur from the TV, signaling Dean had fallen asleep watching afternoon soaps again. Just silence. 

His stomach dropped, but he wasn't ready to write Dean off yet. His brother couldn't have slept well in that jail cell, surrounded by strangers, no family to watch his back—he was bound to be tired. Dropping his backpack by the front door instead of carrying it through to the kitchen to save time, Sam trailed his hand along the foyer wall, headed left towards the bedrooms. 

_Dean_ his heart leapt at the sight of the rumpled comforter, twisted up over the pillows. The rush of joy, of relief, was so potent he’d taken the first couple steps into the room in preparation for jumping on his brother before he realized the lump was too small. That Dean wouldn’t be able to curl up under it.

He pushed his hand down in the comforter to be sure, and slumped when his hand came to rest against the mattress. 

He kind of wanted to melt all the way down to the floor and not move until Dad and/or Dean got home. Make them feel guilty for leaving him alone.

Instead, he went to the dresser and found his nicest pair of non-dress pants and shirt, then went into the bathroom. He'd shower and put on fresh clothes, look as non-neglected as possible for an eleven year-old showing up alone at the Police Station, and hopefully get a few minutes to talk to Dean without getting remanded to CPS. 

Just as he went to pull his shirt over his head, the phone rang—cut off. 

Sam counted out the seconds, already heading to the phone. When it rang again, exactly thirty seconds later, he snatched up the receiver. "Dad?"

_"Hey, Sammy."_

"Dad," he repeated, words rising up in his throat so fast he couldn't get any of them out. He twisted around, put his back to the wall, and that helped steady him, grounded him the way Dad’s voice did.

_"You're ok, buddy,"_ Dad said.

But he wasn’t. There was something wrong, and he needed Dad. Dean and Dad. "Are you coming home?"

_"Soon."_

That wasn’t he wanted to hear. "Is Dean with you?" He knew Dad had something to tell him, knew he wouldn’t have called otherwise, but he needed to know. His hands tightened around the receiver, practically strangling it until Dad said, _"Dean's here,"_ and the relief of that almost washed out the rest of his words. 

_"We're on our way to you. But I need you to listen to me, now, Sammy. It's important. Are you listening?"_

"Yes, sir." His spine straightened reflexively, just from the tone. But he was willing to do pretty much anything if it would get Dad home faster.

_"Good,"_ Dad said. _"I got a call from your school today. They said you were having some problems in class."_

"I didn't get into any fights," he felt compelled to say, because that was one of Dad's rules, and usually what Dad and the teachers meant when they said Dean had had problems at school. 

But Dad said, _"I know you didn't, squirt,”_ like that had never crossed his mind. _“That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the spacing out, the jumping at shadows, the talking to yourself. Your teachers are worried about you, and, frankly, after hearing what's going on, so am I."_

Hearing it out loud, from someone else, from his _Dad_ , made him uncomfortable, made it real in a way it hadn't been when it had just been in his head. But it was also wrong. "I wasn't talking to myself, Dad. I—something happened—” Dean had been arrested, but it wasn’t that. He hadn’t come home, and Sam had gone out. “—and I've been seeing things. Hearing things. But not like that. I think it's a monster, Dad. There was this girl, and she touched me—"

Any other time, Dean would have broken in with a _That's my boy, Sammy!_ and Sam would have come back with _Not like that, jerk._ But Dean didn't say a word. Dad did.

_"It's ok, son,"_ Dad said, firm and soothing, the response skittering wrong and weird up his spine, tickling at the back of his mind like whispers behind his back and secrets. _"I know it's scary right now, but we're gonna figure out what going on. You and me and Dean. We're going to fix it, ok?”_

"Ok," he agreed with a frown, rocking a little on his toes. Why wasn't Dad asking about the girl? About why Sam thought there was something off.

_"Good. Now, go pack your stuff. Be ready to go in an hour."_

"Go where?" he demanded suspiciously, and didn’t like it when Dad hesitated.

_"Just be ready to go. Anything you want to keep had better be in your bag when we get there."_

Sam breathed—couldn’t think of doing anything else—and swallowed hard. He felt like a car struck in neutral, revving and revving. “I’m not crazy, Dad.” Crazy meant doctors and straightjackets and being separated from his family, from Dad and Dean. “I’m not.”

_“We’ll talk about it later, son.”_ Which was what Dad said when he wasn’t listening. _“Just be packed and ready to go.”_

"Dad—"

_"That's an order, Sam. I don't want to hear another word about it, you hear me?"_

His every fiber rebelled against saying the words, rebelled against capitulating to what he knew was wrong. It strained his muscles and tightened his chest, the words stuck in this throat like barbed wire. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t going to let Dad lock him away like he was. 

"Sam?"

His chest hot with anger, he slammed the handset down before he realized he was going to, the sharp crack of plastic loud in the silence. A visceral thrill skittered up his spine in the next moment because _he just hung up on his father_. It shivered through him, followed quickly by shame.

But that didn’t matter. Sam was right and he would prove it. Dad would understand, and everything would be ok.

*

He started with the library. The occult section wasn't very big, but he didn't have much time or any choice. He found information on mares, old hags, incubi, succubi, and some exceptionally vague references to demons, but he was pretty sure he wasn't dealing with a sleep entity, which ruled those out. Unfortunately, he didn't have any better idea what he _was_ dealing with. The closest he could come up with was a banshee, and that just didn't fit. His mind flashed back to the girl at the Market, and he shook it away.

Could demons make you see and hear things? Or maybe the demon was part of the symptoms. 

_Follow the evidence_ , Dad always said, but Sam didn't have any. None that was helpful, anyway, just a stupid feeling about a stupid girl that Dean might have liked. He needed Dad. Or Dean. 

Slamming the last book closed with a scowl, he ducked his head away from the librarian's scowl—like if he couldn't see her expression, it wasn't real, and didn’t that thought just make him feel better—and put the book up without looking at her. Then he paused. 

The girl hadn’t been the only one there that night. What had that guy said? _Don't chase this one off?_ Maybe he didn’t need to know what he was hunting to satisfy Dad. Maybe he just needed to prove there was a hunt. 

Sam found the librarian back behind the counter scanning in returned books. The sour look she gave him when he approached was usually reserved for Dean. He didn’t know how Dean could stand it. 

Doing his best to look contrite, and using what Dean called his pouting puppy eyes, Sam hooked his fingers over the edge of the circulation desk. "Excuse me, ma'am. I'm sorry to bother you, but we're doing a project in school, about local history. And I was wondering if you had any old newspapers?"

Thankfully, the librarian melted, happily setting him with on the microfiche reader.

Sam tried not to notice that his hour was up as he methodically scrolled through frame after frame of microfiche. It was small and difficult to read, but he wasn't interested in most of it, just the obituaries, the missing persons, the sudden spats of violence.

There weren't many, but one headline—Hometown Hero Snaps, Commits Suicide—caught his eye—or rather, the picture under it did. The guy was a jock, classically handsome features, hair spiked, shoulder pads making him look even broader than he was under his jersey (and he wasn’t thinking about how much the guy looked like Dean, because he didn’t), but it was really the girl he was interested in, tucked under his shoulder and smiling brightly into the camera, heart-shaped face and blonde hair.

Standing abruptly, Sam pulled the film out of the machine, stuffed it in his pocket. Normally, he’d bitch at Dean if he did that. But normally Dean wasn’t the next target. He capped the empty canister, then gathered it up with the rest, got his stuff together, and dumped the canisters in the materials return bin at the circulation desk. He’d be long gone before she realized the microfiche was missing.

The librarian smiled at him when she caught his eye. He smiled back and waved, then slipped out the door. The Impala wasn’t waiting in front, idling against the curb in plain view, like he’d more than half expected. Dad wasn’t there, either, and he looked carefully each way to make sure. And stopped. 

The guy standing at the bus stop to his left wasn't Dad. He also wasn't wearing clothes, was intimidatingly tall and muscular, and had bright, vivid blue eyes laser-focused on Sam. He didn't move, didn't blink, and Sam was torn between staring back and running fast in the opposite direction. 

A woman in running spandex jogged past the guy and Sam waited for her to freak out, to scream and raise a fuss, but she didn’t. She just kept jogging past like he wasn't even there.

Maybe he wasn't. Sam didn't want to know what it said about him that he was hallucinating naked men, now. 

Didn't know if it made him feel better or worse that the woman jogged past him the same way.

It didn't make the stare less intimidating. Sam shifted uncomfortably, the need to run itching under his skin. 

Forcing himself to look away, Sam half-braced for an immediate attack and cased the right side of the street quickly, finding it clear of father figures, brothers, Impalas, police, and weirdness. Then he looked back. The guy was still where he'd been, still just as motionless, still just as focused. 

Sam dared to edge away from him. 

The guy didn't move. 

Hand wrapped around his knife, mind stutter-stepping over the question of if it would do anything if the naked guy was a hallucination, Sam started walking, steps slow and small at first, most of his attention cast back over his shoulder. 

The guy still didn't move, not even a twitch.

After a dozen steps, then two, his pace creeping faster and faster, and his steps getting bigger, Sam faced forward. He kept one ear tuned for approaching footsteps behind him, one tuned for the Impala, and both eyes peeled, but he didn’t see or hear anything.

Not of Dad, or Dean, or the naked guy.

He’d relaxed a little by the time he reached the corner of Forestburgh Road, the cars streaming past in both directions forcing him to stop and wait for the crosswalk. So he wasn’t looking for anything in particular, was just checking his surroundings like Dad taught them, when he glanced over his shoulder—

And about jumped out of his skin when the guy was not only there, but in the exact same position he’d been in before, like he hadn't moved a muscle, the distance unchanged, like he’d been pulled along on a tether. His heart thumping double-time, Sam decided the guy wasn’t there if he couldn’t see him. 

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end under the intense gaze, but he just hunched his shoulders and checked traffic both ways. Dad would've had a fit about turning his back on an unknown threat, but Sam didn't care. The guy wasn’t real. He couldn’t be.

At the first gap, he darted across the street, then couldn’t stop himself from turning to look when his feet hit the other side. 

The guy hadn't moved, still staring intently at Sam like he could burn through his head with the power of his mind. But no closer. And no more interesting to the drivers passing than he'd been to the jogger. 

Hallucinations couldn't kill you, right? He pushed the idea out of his head. 

Like he had on the way up, Sam stayed off the street, stuck to cover as much as possible. Unlike the way up, he clung to the straps of his backpack to keep it in place while he covered ground as quickly as he could. He couldn't quite believe he hadn't caught sight of Dad yet, and he glanced repeatedly over his shoulder to look for him as much as the Naked Staring Guy. 

Neither showed up, and the Impala wasn’t in the driveway. Neither Dad nor Dean were home, and Sam didn’t know what to do. Had they left—just moved on—when they couldn’t find him? He couldn’t quite believe it. But he hadn’t thought Dad would ever lock him away in an asylum, either. 

What if proving a monster was here wasn’t enough to convince him Sam wasn’t crazy?

The thought pushed him into motion, pacing restlessly in front of the phone. He could call Dad. Dean would make him come back. But what good would that do if Dad just dismissed the threat and locked him up. 

No. He couldn’t risk it. He needed more. He needed to find the monster and kill it. Decided, he grabbed some holy water.

*

The Market was busy when he reached it, the parking lot packed with cars, but it was the only place (outside of school, and he didn't have time to wait until tomorrow) where he knew to find the girl. 

Sam pushed through the door without worrying about stealth. He didn't see her behind any of the registers, nor behind the Customer Care counter, so he headed for the Bakery. 

"Hey!" rang out loud and angry behind him. He wasn't surprised to see Probably-Manager when he peeked back, just picked up his pace, slamming into the glass cover and going up on his toes to peer into the back (little though that helped) before shoving off and making a beeline for the back. 

He hit the swinging doors hard, gritting his teeth at the way his wrists flared painfully, fully conscious of the slap of louder shoes behind him. Dad would’ve caught him, but the Manager was louder and slower, and Sam managed to keep ahead as the swept the space, noting the pallets, the boxes, the wire metal shelves packed full with unperishables, spaced wide for loading and unloading, and unoccupied—at least by people. 

Left or right--he went right, picking up the pace when he heard the Manager hit the doors. He yelled and a head poked out of a doorway up ahead. 

Sam headed straight for it. The guy—a head taller than Sam, broader, brunet—crouched slightly. He left his weight on his heels, though, and didn't get low enough. Dean would’ve plowed into him and taken him off his feet, but Sam didn’t want to risk the guy being able to wrap him up, so he hesitated just outside arms' length to tempt the guy into the lunge, pushed left and came up under his arms, hooking his ankle. 

The guy stumbled hard, crashed into the nearest pallet and went down. Score one for Winchester. 

Taking advantage, Sam ducked into the doorway, hand on the jamb. He found himself peering at the break room: long table, chairs, fridge, microwave, TV. There were two girls inside, neither of them the one he was looking for. They stared in surprise.

The wannabe-footballer’s hand brushed Sam's ankle. Time to go! He stepped out of reach before the guy could get a hold and kept going, cutting left the first chance he got and heading back the way he came, the Manager’s curses falling on deaf ears. He cut left again when he'd gone far enough, pushed back through the swinging doors. 

His sneakers squeaked on the polished floor. A handful of shoppers stared as he streaked by, drawn to the commotion. He ignored them, heading for the front door. The girl's address was probably in the office, but he didn't know how he'd pick it out since he didn't know her name. If Dean had ever said it, he didn’t remember. 

It had been in the article, though, he thought. When he got a minute, he could pull out the microfiche, get a look. He’d need a magnifying glass, but that was doable. She was probably in the phone book.

Dad would’ve ripped him a new one for not noting her name in the first place, but Dad wasn’t here. Dad wanted to lock him away and throw out the key. Well, Sam wouldn’t let him.

Distracted by thoughts of Dad, he ran into the girl just coming in the front door, backpedaling frantically to keep from bowling her over. They still collided painfully, Sam’s momentum pushing her back until they smacked into the doorjamb. Her hands pressed against his shoulders, blue eyes wide. "Sam?" she gasped.

He gaped, couldn't believe it was that easy. Then her hands flexed against his shoulders, slid up to his neck, and he shoved away. “What are you?” he demanded. 

"Sam, what—?" she repeated helplessly, head moving side-to-side. "I don't—"

Her gaze flicked over his shoulder, drawing his attention to the heavy steps behind him just before a meaty hand seized his shoulder. An irritated voice demanded, "Do you know him, Maja? Do you know this little menace?” He shook Sam for emphasis. Sam just missed biting down on his tongue. His teeth clacked together. 

“He’s . . . a friend of a friend,” she said, and Sam snorted.

“Get him out of my store, right now. I don't ever want to see him again, you hear me?"

Sam didn’t have a problem with that. He did have a problem with Maja touching him again (and now that he’d heard the name, he thought he might remember Dean mentioning she was hot). He dodged her reaching hand, moving laterally toward the door.

Whatever else, he knew he didn’t want to have this conversation in the middle of the grocery store with an irate store manager standing over his shoulder, and, apparently, Maja didn’t, either. She back up, pushing the door open and out, and he followed obediently. The Manager right behind them. 

"And if he stole anything,” he growled, “it's coming out of your paycheck!" 

The door didn’t slam behind them, but the look on the man’s face said he wanted it to. Sam dismissed him, automatically searched the parking lot for the Impala.

It was darker out, the sun mostly hidden behind the treeline. It made it cooler, but Sam barely felt it, his skin still flushed with exertion and anger. But for now, the bite of it felt good against his overheated skin. 

Maja looked from him to the manager, then took a left and kept walking, following the Market's brick walls around the near side, then around the back, stopping just out of sight of the street.

There’d be no witnesses that way, no one to stop her if she wanted to kill him—or to stop him if he killed her. The possibility heightened his awareness, sped his breathing slightly. Dad said they needed to stay calm, to approach the kill rationally, but Sam didn’t know how to stay calm about taking another’s life. 

_You have to be sure_ , a quiet voice whispered. _You don’t know she’s a monster. Not for sure._ His fingers flexed, wanting the solid weight of his butterfly knife.

She turned to face him, folding her arms over her chest. She looked both annoyed and rattled, nervous, like she was trying to be, but he couldn’t tell which one was the act. "Now, what were you yelling about, Sam? And hurry up, I have to get to work."

“You’re a monster,” he said.

“What?”

"You poisoned me."

"Poisoned you?" she scoffed, perfectly arched eyebrows flying toward her hairline. "Have you lost your mind? All I did was talk to you."

"Not today.” His hand swiped away the possibility. "Before. The day Dean got arrested. You touched me."

With a bewildered crease in her brow that looked fake, she slowly said, "Ok, I touched you. I was just trying to comfort you, Sam. You had just found out your brother was arrested. You were scared. What does that have to do with anything?"

Everything—nothing. He didn’t know, except his gut said she was the one. That meeting was the only thing that was different from the rest of the time they'd been here. Every other day he'd gone to school and been awkward and come home to do homework and play ping-pong with Dean. He reset his feet with his determination. "It's how you poisoned me."

"Poisoned you?” she echoed incredulously. “With a touch? Sam, maybe we should go find your brother, ok?"

“No.” He’d barely thought the word before it passed his lips. “You’re not getting anywhere near Dean. Dean’s with Dad. It’s just you and me, and it’s going to end here.”

“End?” Her gaze darted back and forth across his face, jumped down his body and back up, uncertainty shifting into the first hint of fear. “What do you mean, end it?”

“You’re a monster,” he repeated. “You hunt people and you kill them. And I’m not going to let you do it anymore.”

A moment, then she gasped, “Kill me? You’re going to kill me? Sam—” Instead of backing away, she took a step forward, her hand reaching for him. “Sam, come on. You don’t need to do that. Let’s just go back to your place. We’ll talk to Dean. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

"Dean's not here,” he snapped. “Tell me what you are."

"I'm a girl," she insisted, voice wobbling. She reached for him again, closing the distance again, and he fell back a step, knife in hand like he’d called it. She stumbled back, eyes focused on the knife. "Sam, don’t. What are you doing?"

This time, he was the one who closed the distance, knife firmly between them. "You're not a girl," he told her. "You're a monster."

She shook her head. “I’m not.” Tears welled and tracked down her face. "Sam. Don't you want to go get Dean, Sam?"

"I told you—"

“Don’t you want to see your brother?” she asked, abruptly calm. The switch threw him, even though he’d been expecting it. A smile smiled tilted the corners of her lips. “You’ll want to. After all, you should really be more worried about what I did to him, than what I did to you.”

His blood froze in his veins. _Monsters lie_ , he reminded himself, but that wasn’t much comfort. “What do you mean?”

She lifted her eyebrows again in fake surprise. "You think your dad has Dean, Sam?" Her smile grew a little as she shook her head. "No one at the precinct was able to get ahold of the Great Daddy Winchester, so big brother Dean had to stay in county lock-up all by his lonesome. Which isn't to say he was alone or that they weren't willing to let a friend in to see him, bring him a snack, give him a great, big hug and kiss to make him feel better.” She tipped her head back, pushed out her chest, eyes slipping low. “He tasted so good, Sam."

The image sank, horrible and stark, into his brain, ignited the rage in his chest. He lunged forward, driving the blade toward her chest. She got her hands wrapped around his wrist before the tip could sink in, her skin warm against his. Her thumb gently swept the inside of his wrist. He ignored it, pushed harder, but she was strong. The point danced just shy of target.

"Don't you want to know where Dean is, Sam?” she taunted. “I can tell you."

Still straining forward, he forced the words out through gritted teeth. "Why should I believe you?" Monsters lied.

She leaned forward, ignoring the kiss of the blade as it drew a shallow red line across her collarbone. Close enough to lick him. "Because it'll make you taste better," she whispered. 

Instinctively, he jerked back, losing ground and whatever leverage he’d had. He yanked his hands free, watching how she stayed lounged against the wall. His skin crawled with the memory of her touch. He could practically feel the poison there, crawling up his veins. 

"C'mon, Sam," she prodded. "You know your little pig sticker won't kill me. Don't you want to see big brother one last time?"

His free hand drifted to the bottle of holy water. “ _Christo_ ,” he muttered. 

Her brows creased in confusion, but her eyes didn’t turn black or yellow and she didn’t flinch. 

He didn’t know what to do. Dad would. Dean would. But they weren’t here, and maybe the reason they weren’t was because she got to Dean in lockup. Maybe Dean was dead somewhere, his body still and bloody, his throat ripped out and his chest ripped up like he sometimes saw in his nightmares.

His voice quivered when he said, "What are you?"

"Aw, sweetie," she cooed, mockingly maternal, and pushed off the wall. “You’re cute, and it’s been a long time since I’ve really gotten to play with my food, so I’ll throw you a bone. I’m a wraith.”

“A what?” He couldn’t remember Dad ever mentioning them.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Youth, today,” she sighed, like she wasn’t just a few years older than him. Maybe she wasn’t. “What are they teaching you in those schools?" She smirked while he scowled and tried to figure out his next move. 

After a minute, the smirk dropped away. “Ok. I’m not going to lie, I like Dean. He’s sweet and fiery, and he’s been asking for you. So if you want to see your brother? He's at 81-99 East Cold Spring Road. Mom's looking after him. But she’s not as nice as I am."

_Nice._ He scoffed.

The service door slammed open, the guy from the break room stuck his head out. “Hey, Maja, you about done—” His eyes dropped to the knife Sam still stupidly held in front of him. Belatedly, Sam hid it behind his back, but the guy went still, alert. “Everything ok, Maja?”

Maja moved to his side, and Sam couldn’t do anything to stop her. "Everything's fine.” She wrapped her hand around his wrist, then threw over her shoulder. "And, Sam? I'd hurry, if I were you. Mom’s not really the patient type. Tell Dean I said ‘hi.’”

The guy lifted his arm when she pushed past, but his gaze never shifted from Sam. Sam waited, watching to see what he would do. Finally, he moved enough to let the door close behind him. “I don’t make a habit of threatening kids,” he said. “Maybe you’ve got your reasons, but I don’t care. If I see you around here again, or around Maja at all, you’re going to regret it. You understand me?”

Considering he'd put the guy down not thirty minutes earlier, the threat didn’t have much bite. Sam knew who would be putting who down if they ever crossed paths again, and he swallowed against the uncomfortably violent knowledge. He nodded, anyway.

Grimly, the guy pulled the door open and disappeared inside. 

"You should’ve just ripped his throat out."

Sam jumped at the unexpected voice and whipped his head around to find Victoria standing next to him, even if it took him a moment to recognize her since she was wearing dark-washed skinny jeans and a matching denim jacket over a blood-red halter that matched her lipstick, thick black eyeliner emphasizing the pale green of her eyes instead of the pastels he was used to. "Victoria?"

She leaned back from her waist to look him up and down. "What? Were you expecting a little devil on your shoulder?"

"What?" _Devil?_ He looked around, not sure what he was looking for. Victoria lived just a few houses down from them. It would've been easy for her to walk here, but he should have heard her coming before she got so close. "Where'd you come from?"

"Well," she drawled, eyebrows disappearing to black-streaked bangs she hadn't had yesterday, "when a man and woman love each other, or even just sort of like each other, they have sex—"

"Stop, stop!" He stepped back, hands up like he could ward away her words with them, because this—this wasn't Victoria. Victoria was soft-spoken and quiet and shy. She hid behind her textbooks and had to be coaxed into saying more than a few words, always clamed up when relationships came up, even if it was just who was cute. His brain stuttered over an explanation, and it let it go. "I meant, why are you here?"

"You want to go rescue Big Brother, don't you?"

Alarms went off in the back of his head. "How do you know about that?"

"Really?” Her eyebrows danced toward her hairline. “Because I was here while you and Little Miss Thing talked about it." She shifted her weight, jutting her right hip, and crossed her arms over her chest to look down at him, never mind they were almost the same height. "Try to keep up, Sam."

"No, you weren't," he insisted. "I'd have seen you. I'd have heard you."

"Are you sure? You get pretty focused. Very . . . tunnel-vision." Her eyes moved pointedly over his shoulder. 

Reluctant to take his eyes off her, he fought with his curiosity as long as possible before following her gaze.

And ducked, pounding heart suddenly in his throat as dozens of black, pointy-beaked birds dive-bombed his head, rustle of feathers loud even as he got his arms caged around his face, hands laced behind his head. Too close—he cringed in anticipation of razor-sharp claws and razor-sharp beaks raking over his skin, pecking at his skull—

But it didn't come. He waited, trying to slow his breathing, trying to hear past the pounding of his heart, and it still didn't come. He peeked around his arm, then eased to standing, looking around at clear skies. 

"Hmm," Victoria mused. The thing wearing Victoria's skin. That was easier to focus on than mysteriously vanishing birds.

He brandished the knife at her. "What are you?" 

She arched an eyebrow carelessly. "You really have no idea? Tsk-tsk. And after you brought me a surprise, too." She rolled her eyes when he didn't respond, heaving a dramatic sigh. 

Then her eyes changed, the Maja’s hadn’t, the way Dad’s journal said they would. He startled, breath hitching in his throat when his heart skipped a beat, because suddenly her eyes were black. All black. No different from her mascara. It made her eyes look huge and blank and shiny, like a bug's. 

Then she blinked—or Sam blinked—and they were moss green again, and Sam wasn't entirely sure he hadn't hallucinated the switch. 

"Now, why don't you put that little pig-sticker away? Unless you want to kill sweet little Vickie, here?" She swept a hand down her side, down Victoria's side, and smirked. "That could be fun.

"Or maybe I'm not really here," she added when he hesitated. "Maybe your broken head made me up."

It probably wasn't the smartest move. He didn't think Dean or Dad approve of it, but he wasn’t going to hurt Victoria, not even for one of the things that had killed Mom. He flipped the blade closed, ignoring Not-Victoria's pleased smile. "What do you want?"

"I already told you."

"Why?"

"Does it matter?" she challenged. "You need me."

He scoffed. "No, I don't."

"Sure, you do. Daddy dearest isn't here to help. And I know how to kill a wraith." He didn't answer, and after a moment she smirked, the expression hard, like a blade. "Think about it," she ordered. When he blinked, she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

*

Sam didn't know what to do. He was really sick and tired of not knowing what to do.

Dad had said he had Dean. Dad wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t—unless he just wanted Sam to think he had Dean because he knew Sam would worry. Dad lied to keep them safe, Sam knew that, but surely he wouldn’t lie about this?

Or what if that hadn't been Dad? What if his brain had just thought Dad had called and told him what he wanted to hear? Except he didn’t want to go to the funny farm, even if it felt like he needed to. But if he’d made up Dad, then Maja could have Dean. He couldn't leave Dean in the hands of monsters. But if he couldn't trust what he saw, how was he supposed to fight monsters to help Dean? What if he hurt Dean by mistake?

Helplessly, he looked around the lot, the once-vivid colors leached to shadows of shadow as the sun finished disappearing below the earth’s crust. There was no one there with him, no one to offer advice, just brick and trees, asphalt and grass, and the cold northern wind. He shivered, and shook his head. 

Finally pushing into motion, Sam headed to the house, cutting across the neighboring properties to save time. Dad might've gotten home while he was gone, and he might’ve left Dean while he went searching for Sam, and if he did, all of Sam’s worrying was for nothing. Dean or Dad would be able to fix this and everything would be ok. 

Except the house was dark and empty when Sam got there. 

It didn’t matter. Well, it did, but he still had a way to contact Dad. He hadn’t wanted to because Dad didn’t like it when they called him during a hunt, but this was an emergency. He snatched the phone up and dialed.

It was Dean who’d made him memorize Dad’s number. "You need to be able to get in touch with him in case something happens to me," he'd said. Then turned around and said nothing would. Sam had nothing to worry about. 

The phone rang. And rang. And rang. 

On the fifth ring, when Sam’s stomach was just about done tying itself in knots, a gruff voice snapped: "What?"

"Dad!" Sam gasped, relieved by the brusque greeting.

"Sam," Dad growled. "I'm in the middle of a hunt. I don't have time for this."

Abruptly, the relief dissipated, swallowed by a block of ice. "You mean Dean's not with you?"

"He's supposed to be with you," Dad growled. He said more, probably, but Sam didn't hear him, distracted by the confirmation that Dad wasn't looking for him, had never been looking for him, and hadn't even known he should have been—hadn't even known Dean wasn't around to take care of Sam. 

Which meant the wraith's mom had Dean. 

_Monsters lie, Sam_ , Dean's voice said. 

Sam twisted around, looking for his brother. But Dean wasn't there. He wasn't there and he wasn't with Dad, and Sam couldn't take the chance that Maja had lied. He dropped the handset on the table. 

"Does that mean you're ready to take my help?"

He looked at Not-Victoria sharply, the girl leaning against the wall casually—like Dean usually did. "How did you get in here?"

She tipped her head toward the front door. 

He'd salted it before he went to bed the night before. But when he looked, a heel had scuffed through the middle, scattering white crystals across the foyer. A vague memory tickled his mind—tripping as he got the door open, foot dragging before he found his balance. He’d been too distracted to fix it. 

Not-Victoria raised her eyebrows. "Well?"

"Who are you?"

She huffed a laugh through her nose. "I thought we already did this, Sammy, but fine. You can call me Tori."

"You're not Victoria.” 

"And Dean's not getting any safer. You wanna do this or not?"

_Not_ , he thought. But he couldn't remember reading anything about wraiths in his dad's journal. And he hadn't come across anything in the library. Maybe he'd missed it, but did Dean have enough time for him to go searching, particularly if he came up empty? The answer puckered his lips. "Yes," he told her.

"Great!" Tori pushed off the wall, clapping chop-chop. "Grab your silver knives and let's get this show on the road. I've got a car."

*

She took him to a warehouse. It was full dark when they got there, the building all but invisible in the gloom. He could see enough to know it was big, the roof stretching above them for at least two stories. If there were any lights on inside, he couldn't see them.

"This is the place?" he asked dubiously, just to double-check.

"81-99 East Cold Spring Road."

He wished Dean was here. But if Dean was, he wouldn't need to go in. 

Determinedly, he pulled his backpack into his lap, pulled out Dean's silver knife and passed it to Tori, then pulled out his own and a flashlight. He turned to her, guilt dragging at his stomach. He only had one flashlight. 

"I'm good," she assured him. 

There were three garage-door style doors big enough for semis to drive through, but they bypassed them in favor of the people-sized door on the right. It was open, so they slipped inside, Sam keeping watch while Tori eased the door shut behind them. 

When he felt her at his shoulder, he glanced back. Her eyes were black pits in the darkness. He didn’t think her eyes were actually black, but it still reminded him he was hunting with a demon, the same thing that killed mom. Dad would've ripped him a new one. 

"Ready?" he whispered.

"Waiting on you, cupcake."

It was weird hunting without Dean. His brother always insisted on going first. And while he probably could have sent Tori in first—Dad probably would have preferred that to him having a demon at his back—the demon wouldn't protect Victoria. That was Sam's job. 

At least until he got Dean back. 

Setting his jaw, Sam steadied his grip around the knife, then clicked on the flashlight. The little sound seemed loud in the darkness, but nothing came at them. Nothing moved. He kept the light aimed low, knowing the beam made him easy to spot. 

They progressed slowly. Most of the floor was open, forklifts and beams and other things Sam couldn't readily identify stacked mostly along the walls. They wove in and out of each one, checking them from all sides. It felt like it took forever to clear the ground floor, but they did it. Which left the row of offices up an exposed, metal staircase. 

Sam paused at the bottom, head cocked to listen, but he couldn't hear any voices or hint of movement. That worried him. This whole thing worried him. Shouldn't they have heard something by now, either from Dean or the wraith?

"Don't pussy out now, Winchester," Tori hissed in his ear. 

He swallowed hard, then put his foot on the far side of the first step. He expected a creak when he put his weight on it, but it stayed quiet. The next step was easier and just as quiet.

He tucked the flashlight behind his body as they reached the top of the stairs, felt his heart jump when he saw light glowing beneath one of the closed doors. Far as he could tell, that was the only occupied room. 

Clicking off the flashlight, he tucked it into his pocket, cautioned Tori to silence, then crept forward. The metal catwalk rang softly under his feet, the faint resonance only audible because of the complete silence around them, but it put him on edge, made him sure whoever was in that room could hear it, too. 

At the door, he paused again and thought he heard something shift, a faint groan that jolted his heart with thoughts of Dean. He turned to check Tori was ready, then counted down from three, tucking his fingers down into his fist. 

He twisted the knob and pushed the door open. A single bulb dangled from the ceiling, bright but not blinding, and Sam quickly took in the scene—the blonde-haired blue-eyed woman pulling a long stick out of the brain of a guy Dad's age, the two others slumped in chairs, hurt but not dead.

None of them were Dean. 

"Oh. You smell delicious, dear," the woman said. She looked just like an older Maja.

The door closed behind him. He didn’t have time make sure Victoria was behind before the young couple in the chairs looked up. Their eyes glowed red, and their mouths expanded into sharp-tooth muzzles, growls rising in their throats, deep and vicious. Their hands, curled into claws, came up, nails lengthening into jagged knives. Monsters, not victims. Not bound.

They lunged.

Instinctively, Sam lashed out. Knocking the nearest one back, he slipped to the side, twisted away from the raking claws and struck again, and again, and again, until the monsters were bloody carcasses and it was just him and Mama Maja. 

"Well," she mused while Sam struggled to catch his breath, "I guess that's what happens when you give a crazy person a knife."

He blinked, the words not quite right. Her speculative gaze caressed the bodies at his feet. When Sam followed her gaze, he didn’t see the wolf-like things he’d killed. He found humans—human skin streaked liberally with blood, human eyes staring fixedly at nothing, human fingers spread in helpless defense. His stomach flipped. 

Then something slammed into the back of his head, and he fell into darkness.

*

Victoria—no, not Victoria. Tori—was watching him when he pried his eyes open and his head up, rolled it back against the wall so he could see. His head ached, a nowhere throb that seemed to echo and bounce around his skull. He’d expected to wake up bound to a chair, but he was on the floor, slumped awkwardly against the wall.

His eyes shied away from Victoria’s—Tori’s amused and unconcerned concern, looking for Dean like he had all his life. 

He found the victims' bodies, instead. He swallowed thickly against the bile that tried to push up his esophagus.

Tori didn’t have any such concerns. She slapped his thigh. "Welcome back.” There was a bruise on her check, darkening around her eye, fading to red along the edges. It looked sharp and painful over her cheekbone. "You ready to blow this popsicle stand?"

"What about them?" He couldn’t quite make himself look straight at them. He’d done that. Not the wraith-- _him_.

"Dead," she said carelessly. "You wanna call it in to the cops, that's your choice. But I'd suggest we get moving if you want any chance of getting to your brother while he's still alive."

That grabbed his attention, spine coming to attention. "What?"

Tori smirked. "Mommy dearest let slip where she hid the handsome one. So, you coming or what?"

She stood without waiting for Sam, without looking back or offering him a hand, without clapping him on the shoulder or herding his down the stairs. It hurt, the proof that Dean wasn't there. But she also wasn’t Dean. She couldn’t replace him, and he wouldn’t have stood it if she’d tried.

But he’d get Dean back, Sam promised himself as he pushed the pain away—physical and emotional—and gained his feet. He'd make this right.

His gaze skirted the victims when he left, not wanting to see their empty, damning eyes.

*

Tori didn't turn on any music when they climbed back into the car. Sam wasn’t sure if he was grateful for that or not. He was definitely not grateful for the fact that she seemed impervious to cold, cruising with the window down, one arm dangling against the outside of the car. Sam huddled against the passenger door, legs drawn up and hands pulled into the sleeves of his sweatshirt then buried in the kangaroo pocket. And he still felt like he was shaking.

Or maybe that wasn’t the cold. He stared out the side window, unseeing. He'd killed people. Innocent people. How was he supposed to hunt if he couldn't tell the people from the monsters? How was he supposed to rescue Dean?

"I've got something that could help you with that," Tori announced. 

Sam hadn’t realized he said any of that out loud, and he turned his head in surprise, but she kept her eyes on the road. Maybe she’d read his mind. "Help with what?"

"Your little problem? You know, the reason you went psycho on Mr. and Mrs. Beaver?” He scowled at her even though she couldn’t see it. “I can make that go away. You'll feel stronger, faster. Most importantly—" She threw him a smirk. "—your head will be clear. And it’s easy as pie. Easier, really, since you don’t need an oven or any skill."

_Monsters lie_ , Dad’s voice growled, but he didn’t need the reminder to know things that sounded too good to be true usually were. “What’s the catch?” he asked.

“No catch.”

"Then why didn't you give it to me before?"

Her expression was disturbing sober and sympathetic. "Because you weren’t ready."

His lips twisted in aggravated disgust. “And I’m ready now?”

She looked at him, long enough to make him worry about car crashes. “Maybe.”

He huffed, aggravated. It didn’t make it better that he couldn’t get the dead people out of his head, couldn’t stop seeing them. Plaintively, he asked, "How do I know you're not lying?”

She swept her hair out of her face with the hand that had been holding the steering wheel. "How do you know I'm not a figment of your imagination?"

He leaned his head against the window. He didn’t have an answer for her, but the blood didn’t go away. It scared him a little, what he thought he might do to make it go away. 

*

Sam didn't know when he fell asleep, but he woke up in the house on the couch. He sat up, swung his legs over the side. The house was dark, no sign of Dad, but Sam needed to see Dean. He knew his brother was there. He could feel it in his bones. 

Shadows moved like living things around the furniture. They darted ahead of him, playful, and Sam watched them with no fear. They were leading him to Dean, he knew, and he welcomed them. They would always help him find Dean. 

They curled around his ankles in agreement, swirled up his calves and reached for his fingers, licked against the tips and then slipped away, followed behind him like obedient puppies. Power thrummed in his chest and the faint taste of blood lingered on the back of his tongue.

He strode into Dean's room, power flowing through him, and the shadows that had been leading him broke away and curled back, swept behind him, gathered and watched and waited. They knew better than to get between him and his brother.

Because Dean was there. Even with the certainty thrumming through him, he hadn't been able to really know until he'd seen. But Dean was there, waiting for him, blood glistening dark and wet against his skin, still warm in the hollow of his throat, hazel-green eyes so bright against his pale flesh, freckles like candy scattered over his cheeks and nose. 

_Are you ready, Dean?_ he wanted to ask, the words welling up in his throat like spilt blood, thick with anticipation and power. _Are you ready, Dean?_

*

Sam jerked awake when the car stopped. His gaze darted to the corners, looking for living shadows, but the foot well was clear. The seats and dash were clear.

The building in front of them surprised him—a 50s-style strip motel like Dad might've chosen—and he turned to ask Tori if they were there already, but she was gone. He slipped out of the car, glancing around, but they were practically the only ones there, the only other cars in the lot a silver one that probably belonged to the owner and a blue one parked in front of the second room down. 

Tori waited in front of the desk clerk, face pinched in annoyance, but the clerk didn't seem to be paying attention to her. Sam padded closer, more than a little surprised she didn't warn him away. 

When he stopped at her side, the clerk looked up. Surprise flashed across his face, followed by wary concern. Sam couldn’t say that was the usual reaction and it unnerved him, even before the clerk’s careful, "You alright, kid?"

"Fine." He checked Tori’s reaction but she just smirked, standing hipshot and expectant against the counter. He tried not to notice that the clerk was staring at his chest. "Can we get a room, please?"

The clerk paused in the middle of reaching for a pen, a stutter like scratch of the needle over a record. The clerk was older, like Dad, and balding, the top of his head shiny with sweat. "We?" he asked, and cast a surreptitious look outside, possibly hoping to see an adult leaning against the hood of the car, or maybe about to pull the door open. "Where are your parents?"

Still Tori didn't jump in and the clerk barely glanced in her direction. Sam shifted uncomfortably. No matter how often Dean said it was necessary, he still didn’t like lying. "O-outside. Dad's not feeling good. That's why we stopped. He really needs to lie down. Ok? Please?"

For a long minute, the man didn't move and Sam thought they'd have to make a run for it. Then he nodded slowly, hand creeping as he stretched for a set of keys. "Alright," he agreed. "But I'm going to need your dad to come in and sign for the room tomorrow morning, when he's feeling better. Alright?" He set the key down and slid it across the counter. 

Sam took it with a muttered, "Thanks."

"Yeah. Thanks for nothing," Tori added snidely. Sam ducked his head, embarrassed, but the clerk didn’t react. He hurried for the door, the better to get them out of there before she said something they’d both regret. 

He glanced back when he reached the door, though, checking the clerk's reaction, and saw him reach for the phone. 

Tori saw it, too. "That fucker's gonna ruin everything."

She reversed direction. His eyes caught a flash of silver, but he barely had time to register what she was going to do before the knife cut the air and the clerk was dead, a great, bloody slash in his neck stretching from ear to ear. Sam felt the shock of it down to his feet. Another innocent, dead.

The injustice of it burned hot in his chest. He didn't move out of the way when Tori approached, forcing her to stop or run into him. She stopped, but she didn’t get it. 

"You killed him!"

"Hello, demon,” she snarled back. “Of course, I killed him. He was going to call the cops. How were you planning to find Dean from behind bars?"

"We could have run!"

"Yeah?" She pushed her face uncomfortably close to his. "Well, we wouldn't've had to if you hadn't gone all Carrie at the warehouse. Now, stop being a pussy, and come on. You’ve gotta get cleaned up."

She snatched the key from his numb hand, shouldered him aside, and stalked outside. For the first time, Sam looked down at his hands, really looked at them, and felt his stomach swoop when he realized they were covered in blood. It stretched up the arms of his sweatshirt and down the front, and he could feel it, dry and itchy, on his face. 

Jaw clenched against the bile trying to climb his throat, Sam followed her down to room 6 with careful steps, like that might stop the blood from touching him, from spreading and contaminating everything, and slipped into the room without a word. 

"You want me to get your stuff?" she offered suddenly, voice still sharp and not looking at him, like Dean sometimes did when he was angry but felt bad about making Sam feel bad. 

"I didn't bring a change of clothes," he admitted mutedly. Dad would have chewed him out for not being prepared, but Tori just scoffed and stalked out. He pushed the door closed behind her, then didn't know what to do. He looked down at his hands.

_Know what you're hunting,_ Dad always said. _We don't kill humans. So you turn your weapon on something that looks human, you better be damn sure it needs to die. You hear me, Sam?_

_Yes, sir._

But he hadn't been. He'd just _reacted_ and now two people were dead. Innocent people. People he should have saved. Skin crawling, he yanked his sweatshirt over his head, fists jerking at the fabric, trying to tear it apart, trying to unmake it, but it just stretched and gave and survived—

With a roar, Sam slung it into the corner, barely hearing it slap against the wall and slide down, then stalked into the bathroom. He twisted the hot water on full blast, motions sharp and jerky, and shoved his hands under the spray while the water was still freezing. He scrubbed furiously, wishing he could take his skin off with the blood. Wished—

But if he was dead, who would save Dean? Dad? But Dad wasn't here. Dad had left them to go on a hunt and protect other people instead. No, it had to be Sam. It had to be. 

More carefully, he got the rest of the blood off, then leaned over to begin cleaning off his face. By the time he was done, his hands were red from the heat, he had water dripping off his elbows, pinkish puddles surrounded the sink and dripped onto the floor, and his shirt was plastered to his skin. But when he looked in the mirror, his face was clean. 

His soul wasn't, and Sam looked down quickly, twisting the water off with hands that wanted to shake. He kept his head down when he stepped back into bedroom, avoiding his reflection, and dried his hands on his pants. "Tori, I'm re—"

Tori wasn't there. The naked man was.

Startled, Sam stopped. His heart kicked against his ribs. Every muscle in the man's arms and chest was coiled tight, his face twisted in rage, but it was his eyes that held Sam in place. Bright blue, they burned with the desire to tear Sam into pieces, blast him apart atom by atom. Like before, though, the naked man didn't move. 

Hands curling around his courage, Sam lifted his chin. "What do you want?"

Between one blink and the next, the naked man was right in front of him, barely a foot separating them. Before Sam had a chance to flinch, the man's hand flattened against his chest, each finger a brand that burned clear through his shirt. "You need to stop, Sam."

"What?"

“You need to stop, Sam,” he repeated. 

"S-stop what?" he gasped.

But the man didn't answer. He wasn't there.

*

Sam felt like he was drowning. His chest burned and ached, filled with sadness and fear, horror and guilt, love and loneliness, and he didn't know where any of it had come from, why he felt it all now. But he did, and it burned in the back of his throat, making him feel small and helpless and so, so alone. 

He wanted his dad. 

The phone was on the nightstand. Sam stumbled to it on numb feet, put the receiver to his ear. The dial tone hummed like his blood, buzzed in his ears. He couldn't remember Dad's number past it until he heard Dean's voice: eight-six-six-five-five-five—

His fingers obediently punched the numbers. It rang once, twice—

"Sammy?" Urgent. Hopeful.

"Dad," he murmured, those stupid tears clogging his throat. He cleared them away, tried again. "Dad—"

"Sammy, where are you?"

He didn't know. His eyes darted around, slipped past and then caught on the complementary note pad. He rattled off the address at the bottom. "Dad—"

"You stay there, Sammy," Dad commanded, deep and rumbling and strong. "That's an order. You stay there. Got it?"

"Yea—"

"Sam?" Tori poked her head around the doorjamb, door flung wide. "Cops! We've got to move."

_You need to stop, Sam._

"Aw," a different voice cooed—not the naked man's, not his father's, higher pitched than both—beside his ear. "Don't listen to him, Sammy. I've got great plans for you."

He whirled. The phone slipped down to his chest. His father's voice, small and distant, called: _"Sammy?"_ The man had spiky blond hair, a long, angular face. When he smiled, his teeth were unnaturally white and straight, and his brown eyes turned yellow. 

"What?" the man—demon—asked when all Sam did was stare. "Don't I get a hello? I've known you since you were a baby, after all. It's only polite. Your father taught you manners, didn't he? It's so important for young people to learn manners, nowadays, isn't it?"

Sam's throat clicked when he swallowed. "You leave my dad out of this."

_"Sammy?"_

The demon's attention dropped. Long fingers pointed at his chest. "Is that Daddy Dearest now? How wonderful! We can have a little reunion, get the whole family in one place. You'll be able to see how much he loves your gift."

"What gift?"

"Why," the demon drawled, "the one I'm going to give you."

He remembered Tori telling him she had something to fix him, something that could make the hallucinations stop. He could taste blood in the back of his throat, remembered how quickly and easily she had killed the clerk. It’d been the Yellow-Eyed demon that killed his mom. 

"I don't want it," he said quickly, before he could think of the couple on the warehouse floor. 

The demon crouched so his face was level with Sam's. "You don't even know what it is yet. You might change your mind."

"I won't," he declared confidently, even as he felt his body start to shake. 

The demon's smile was slow, snake-like, his voice a matching, sibilant hiss by Sam's ear. "Your mother did." Then he pulled back. It felt like he took the carpet with him, dropping Sam in a world oriented differently than it had been. "All it would take is a drop. Think about it."

_"Sammy, answer me!"_

The door stuttered into the wall, drawing Sam's attention back around. Belatedly, he realized the door was open. The police officer standing ready just inside the room levelled his gun at Sam's chest. "Police!" he called redundantly. "Don't move! Hands where I can see them!"

His tongue felt glued to the top of his mouth. Dad would’ve known what to say. Sam couldn’t think. He moved his hands away from his sides obediently. It pulled the wet fabric away from his skin, letting cool air in, and he shivered, wished for his sweatshirt, even if it was covered in blood. His stomach twisted. 

There were muffled voices outside. The officer tilted his head to listen, then raised his voice: "Over here! I've got him!"

Footsteps, then, more than one set, and Sam braced for the officer's partner to round the doorway. One of them would move to cuff him once backup arrived, and Sam needed to have his next move figured out by then. As if he had any moves. The cop was in front of the only exit. 

He wasn't expecting Maja's mom, but it was her blonde-haired, blue-eyed face that peered around the doorjamb and smoothed from worried to fondly maternal when she caught sight of him. "There you are, sweetheart. I've been worried sick about you. Why ever did you run off like that?"

_Run off?_

Sam darted a look at the officer, but his expression never flickered. His stance never wavered. If he thought it was weird to have a civilian on-scene, he didn’t show it. He treated the woman like back, taking her presence as permission to enter the room, keeping his knees bent and gliding smoothly along the wall until he came level with Sam, pivoting to keep him centered in his crosshairs. The wraith trailed smoothly behind, never once coming between Sam and the gun.

But the wraith didn’t keep her distance. She walked right up to Sam, and between the wall and the gun, he didn’t have anywhere to go. His instincts insisted he run, but he couldn’t move. 

The wraith cupped his face, tsked. "Oh, you poor dear. Whatever happened to you? How would you like to get out of those wet clothes, hm?"

"Ah—" Why didn’t the cop care that he wasn’t working with his partner?

Fingers light as spider silk brushed his arm, drawing his attention back to the wraith in time for her to close her hand around the phone and pull it from is hand. He tightened his grip momentarily, stupidly reluctant to release that connection to his dad, but the cop perked up with his resistance, trigger finger tensing in readiness, and Sam let it slip through his fingers. 

Whatever else, he couldn’t save Dean if he was dead.

Movement in the corner of his eye drew his attention back to the door even as the wraith grabbed his wrist and used it to draw him forward. He barely noticed the touch or the movement, too busy staring at the clerk in the doorway, white bone shining bright in the gaping red wound in his throat. 

He blinked hard, thinking the man might disappear, but he didn't. _Revenant?_ But why didn’t anyone else see him? Why didn’t he attack? "Why are you doing this?” he asked.

It was the cop who answered. "You came here to kill us, Sam Winchester. You didn't really think we'd take that lying down, did you?"

Hard hands closed over Sam's shoulders, biting down to the bone and pressing, pressing, pressing, until it felt like his legs would buckle and the floor would crack and he'd be driven down into the center of the earth. Then the pressure was gone, and the hands, and he stumbled forward, crashing to his hands and knees. He barely felt the ground, the sting of impact, before he scrambled forward, arms and legs moving frantically. 

Every moment, he expected to feel hands snatching at his legs. 

He looked up. The doorway was clear. He gained his feet as he reached it, twisted to see how far back they were, and slammed into something solid. Air whooshed out of his lungs. Arms wrapped around his chest. He collapsed his legs, pulling his captor forward and off-balance, then planted his feet and threw his head back. The arms banding him loosened. Aiming high, he threw an elbow, stayed close and followed it with a jab.

If they thought he was going to just lay down and die when they were trying to kill him, they had another think coming. 

The cop carried a Taser. He might’ve also carried a gun but the Taser was there, right in front of Sam's eyes, right under his hand. He pulled it while the cop was still trying to find his breath, got it aimed, and pulled the trigger. 

The prongs buried deep in the cop’s abdomen. Electricity pumped into his nervous system, and the cop dropped, twitching and rigid. 

Sam kept his finger on the trigger while he got the lay of the land. Red and blue strobed the darkness. A cop car and an ambulance sat in front of the office, doors open but personnel nowhere in sight, presumably inside with the corpse. The corpse he’d seen—thought he’d seen. He didn’t see it now. 

The light was on in the other occupied room, the blue car still parked in front of it. Darkness the other way. He didn't see Victoria. Her car was where they'd left it. 

Someone would come looking for the cop soon. 

He couldn't be here when they did. He’d gotten lucky this time. It wouldn’t happen again. But run or drive? They'd probably hear the car. 

The car was faster.

Decision made, he dropped the Taser and ran low and fast for the car. The passenger door was closest, so he pulled it open, slipped in that way, and pulled it quickly and quietly shut behind him. The keys were in the ignition. 

Every second, he expected someone to poke their head out of the office and raise the alarm. 

Soon, the monster in cop's clothing would regain control of his limbs and alert his friends. 

Sam turned the key. The roar was more housecat than lioness, but it still carried in the still air. He wrenched the gear shift to Reverse, looked over his shoulder, and stepped on the gas. The car jumped and ran like it'd been goosed, rolled straight over the grass and curb, into the street, bouncing hard enough to rattle Sam's head. In the middle of the street, Sam stomped the brake, put the car in Drive.

Three people had spilled out of the office, one of them the other officer. The cop's eyes met his, head tilting so he could talk into the radio on his shoulder.

Sam stepped on the gas. Buildings and lights passed by in a blur. Signs. He darted compulsive glances as he drove because he needed a new car. Cops—even monster cops—could track this one now that they'd seen it. So he had to dump it. He wanted badly to pull off to the side of the road and run, but he also needed to find Victoria, and they'd need transportation when he did so they could get Dean. 

Dad liked long-term parking at the airports, but Sam didn't know where the nearest airport was. It didn't have to be an airport, though. It could be a dealership, or a commuter car park—anywhere that had a lot of cars in one place. 

The blue and white Wal-Mart sign caught his eye. He stomped the brake, swerving into the turn lane, and craned his neck to peer out the rear-view mirror. The few headlights were distant, no red-and-blue among them. He dared to feel relief, throttled the car back to a crawl, and took the turn into the parking lot at an easy pace. 

It felt wrong, conspicuous. Like he was floating in the open with a target on his back just asking to be shot. His leg cramped with the effort not to give it more gas. 

He turned down the middle aisle, wringing the steering wheel as his gaze darted from car to car. Dad told them to look for older cars, ones no one would miss. But Sam couldn't see how anyone would _not_ miss a car they took shopping. None of them looked any more likely than the others, not to him. 

He reached the end of the row, having passed three parking spots that looked too small, and took a left in front of the store. There was a space, two cars in, that Sam hesitated in front of, feeling the press of _too long, too long_ squeezing his insides. He huffed, hit the gas, and drove to the end of the line. It wouldn't be as hidden, but he didn't have to worry about hitting anyone. 

Leaving the keys in the ignition, he leaned across the seat, grabbed his backpack, and slipped into the really freaking cold air. His skin immediately prickled with goosebumps and he shivered hard. The still-damp fabric over his chest felt like ice. The car door sounded really loud when he pushed it shut, but there was no one else in the parking lot. 

It felt like there were watching eyes everywhere. 

Keeping one eye on the store's exits and one eye out for incoming traffic, Sam went down the line of cars, giving each door handle a quick tug before moving to the next. He crouched, but thought that looked suspicious. He felt too exposed standing up. Walking took too long, but running would draw attention. 

The door of some sedan opened, and Sam slipped inside. He ran his hands under the seat, checked the center console, the visors, the glove compartment, but he didn't find any keys. He needed the keys. When he got Dean out of this, he was going to insist Dad teach him to hotwire a car. 

He closed the door behind him, went for the next. Locked, locked, locked. . . . He ducked into a yellow car that opened, but came up similarly empty. Kept going. 

A couple girls came out of the store, and Sam ducked behind an SUV. He craned his head to keep them in sight, slipped around to the other side when they passed the vehicle he hid behind. The seconds pressed in while he waited for them to climb into their own car and leave, itching under his skin like ants. 

When he ran out of cars, he crossed to the next row. 

A guy came out of the store while he was searching an Oldsmobile. It had taken longer than the others; the glove compartment was stuffed, and he had to pull almost half of the odds and ends out to make sure he hadn't overlooked them. Then the center console had been filled with change and key rings. Most of them didn't have keys, or at least not car keys, but he'd thought he'd seen one. 

Then movement made him look up. His heart about leapt out of his chest because the guy was right by the back bumper, heading straight for Sam. He plastered his back to the seat and slid down. He didn't know what good hiding would do when the guy opened the driver's door and found Sam, but announcing his presence was stupid. 

In the side mirror, he saw the guy round the rear bumper, head down while he fumbled his keys. Sam could maybe jump out the passenger side before the guy realized Sam had been in his car. Sam could say he'd gotten lost. That'd he gotten scared and needed to hide. That he hadn't meant to. 

Then the guy looked up. Just for a moment, he looked straight into the mirror, straight at Sam, and his eyes flashed yellow. Sam felt every muscle in his body lock tight. 

The seconds passed—one, two—The guy slid into view, tall enough Sam couldn't make out his face, even slid as low as he could get without crouching in the foot well, with broad shoulders and the same rolling walk as Dad, aware and dangerous. He slid into view and kept going, back to Sam as he passed the front of the car, stopped at the truck parked kitty corner to the Oldsmobile. When the guy ducked into the car, Sam slid out of sight. 

He clutched the bottom of the steering wheel and stared intently at the window, counted off the seconds. How long to get his limbs inside—he heard the door smack closed—how long to get his purchases settled, the seatbelt on, check the mirrors—he heard the engine surge and growl, and waited until he couldn't hear it anymore, then waited five more seconds. Slowly, he pushed back up, craned his head up to make sure the car was gone—it was—his breath whooshed out when his back hit the seat. 

It took a minute to stop shaking enough to finish checking the center console. Nothing. 

The next six cars wouldn't open when he pulled the handle. There were only about three dozen cars in the lot, and he'd checked almost half of them. The possibility that he might not find another car nagged at him. What would he do then? Hide away in the back until the owner came out? Hope they didn't check the trunk? Follow them into the house and steal their keys? Or hold them up and take them. 

But then they'd report the car stolen and he'd be right back where he was. 

His hand had just brushed the next door handle when something made him look up. They were by the car—Victoria's car. The wraith and some guy that might have been the police officer or might have been someone else. Sam had a hard time focusing on him. But he could see the wraith fine, her pale skin and blonde hair practically glowing in the moonlight.

She put her hand on the car, then scanned the parking lot. Sam ducked before her eyes could land on him, getting low and shifting to the put the most car between them. How had she found him?

Silence.

No one raised an alarm, but then, Dad and Dean wouldn't have raised one, either. He glanced down the length of the car across to the other aisle. It was empty, but it might not stay that way. Or it might, while they circled around and got behind him. Pushing up slowly, Sam craned his head until he could peek through the nearest window. 

It didn't help. 

Cautiously, he shifted right along the back of the car until he could peer around the side. The wraith just stood there, scanning the parking lot, hands on her hips. He couldn't see her companion. 

Then she started speaking, loud enough to carry across the parking lot. "I know you're here, Sam Winchester. I can smell you." There was a pause, her nose lifted like a dog scenting the air. "If you knew how good you smell, you wouldn't resist me, Sam."

Fat chance. He sank back into a crouch, checking his surroundings. He needed to figure out what he was going to do. 

He wanted to kill her. If she was dead, she wouldn't be able to hurt Dean or Dad or Victoria. But maybe he wouldn't be able to find Dean if he killed her. Tori was the one who knew, and he didn't know what had happened to her. Maybe the wraith had already gotten her. 

Or maybe she was back at the motel where Sam had left her. 

"You can't hide from me forever, Sam," the wraith said. "I can feel you. Smell you. No walls, no distance, no amount of running, will keep me away from you. You belong with me, Sam. Make this easy on both of us."

Movement to the right drew his attention. The guy had slipped past him, almost to the end of the row. Sam needed to move. He needed a car _now._

Squatting, Sam duck-walked as quick as he could to the next aisle, slipped between the nearest cars to the far row. He tugged the car doors as he passed without lifting out of his crouch, kept moving when they didn't open. He popped up next to a truck to check the enemy’s locations—far away and not looking at him—and caught a glint out of the corner of his eye on the way back down.

Keys.

His heart jumped. He pulled the handle, part of him already climbing into the car, but the door didn't budge. He pulled it again, then again. No—he needed those keys. He didn't have any other options! Instinct pulled his gaze left, locking with the wraith's bright blue eyes. An electric jolt shot down his spine like a whole body cattle prod, terror and adrenaline mingling to wipe everything else out except _need_. He yanked the handle—stumbled when the door opened. 

The companion had seen him now, too, and he started running. 

Sam didn't question it, just slung his backpack in and grabbed the keys, hauled his butt into the seat and the door closed and jammed the key in the ignition. The truck roared to life. He couldn't touch the back of the seat and the pedal at the same time, had to sit forward on the edge of the seat just to manage the pedal so it felt like playing dress-up with his dad's leather jacket, but he didn't care, just put the car in Drive and clung to the steering wheel. 

The truck leapt forward and he fell back and he scrambled to get the wheel turned away from the other cars, scrambled to get it straightened back out, scrambled to get his foot back on the gas, watched with anticipation the accomplice scrambling to get out of the way of the truck as it charged toward him. 

He headed for the highway, then, going back the way he’d come, and clamped down tight against the feeling that he was spinning off into nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

*

Sam's hands cramped from clinging so tightly to the steering wheel, and his arms burned. His back had locked up and his leg ached. He was breathing too hard, the sound loud in his ears, bounced back to him in the too large, too empty cab, and he couldn't stop. He was losing it, he could hear it, and he couldn’t stop. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't stop. 

The world rushed by, blurred and stretching like a picture taken with a long exposure, there and gone before Sam could grasp it. Then he'd blink and it'd stand still, dark and empty, the store fronts and trees and empty highway picked out in sharp relief, quiet and empty like a graveyard, bare and decayed like a skeleton. 

He glanced in the rear view and saw angry, yellow eyes, beak sharp and gaping, nails-on-chalkboard screech tearing at his eardrums. He whirled, hands catching at the seat backs and saw nothing but black blacktop and black sky and black shadows. 

_It's not real_ , he told himself, but maybe that wasn't true. Maybe he was the lie, a ghost walking in a dead world ruled by monsters. Maybe he hadn't ever been real. 

Dropped back in the seat, he scooted forward to get his foot back on the gas, his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road. He didn't know anything else to do but keep going. Dean would fix it. He just had to find Dean. 

*

First, he had to find Tori. Tori knew where Dean was and, besides, it was his responsibility to take care of Victoria. She wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for him. 

He'd passed the motel before he saw it, so he pulled into the next driveway. All of the lights were off in the building, so he didn't worry about finding a parking place, just stopped where he was and put the car in Park. 

The motel had been blocked off with yellow crime scene tape, the parking lot emptied. Sam fingered the tape, feeling reluctant to pass it. He wasn't supposed to pass it, no one was. They were supposed to preserve the crime scene so the police could do their job and put the bad guys away.

There were some bad guys the police didn’t recognize, though. Some that they couldn’t do anything about. Dad helped with those, and Dad crossed the crime scene tape all the time. But he wasn't Dad. 

He was going to be like him, though. 

It still felt like pulling off part of his skin, pushing the tape up and ducking under it. Blood dripped down his arm. 

He moved carefully, putting each foot down like the ground would crack and fall away. Don't step on the cracks or you'll break your mother's back, but his mother was gone, burned up on the ceiling in his nursey. 

He tasted blood in the back of his throat, saw a clown staring at him that vanished when he turned to look at it head-on. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs. Maybe that was where the blood came from, the air barbed, except it felt thin. He couldn't seem to pull enough of it into his lungs. 

"Think it's time for you to lie down, kiddo."

"No." He shook his head, and the ground swayed under his feet. The parking lot telescoped, stretching away to infinity. He took another step. 

"I'm just looking out for you here, Sammy-boy. You don't look so good."

He didn't feel so good, either. Pieces were missing. Dean was missing. That couldn’t stop him, though. He just had to keeping putting one foot in front of the other. That was what Dean always said. _You've got this, Sammy. Just keep going. One foot in front of the other. That's it._

When he looked up, he found the office in front of him, the opaque glass reflecting his face back at him. His eyes were dark. He pulled the door open. The lights were off. Light still streamed in from outside, tracing the outlines of the rack of brochures, the desk. The ledger was missing, but the bell was there. 

So was Victoria. 

He rounded the desk and found her sprawled on the floor, face clear of makeup, pale eyes staring blindly at the ceiling. Her fingers curled gently by her hips. Her throat gaped open, red and raw, like the clerk's had. 

For long minutes he couldn't look away, couldn’t move, couldn't breathe. He'd done this to her. He'd killed her. Tears filled his chest, burned his throat, flooded his eyes. Gasping in a breath, he stumbled back—

And saw Dean. His legs went out from under him. 

Arms wrapped around his chest, hauled him back. Between one blink and then next, he was outside, his own shocked face reflected back to him in the glass. He forgot to breathe. No. He couldn't see Dean. "No!"

"Sam!"

"Dean!" He squirmed, trying to force the arms holding him up and his body down, trying to twist, trying to thrash free. Trying to get free.

"Sam, stop!"

"Let me go! Dean!" He kicked back, again and again, doubling his efforts when he hit something solid. 

"Dean's not here!" He got in an especially good kick, heard a curse, and then the world tilted. His feet hit nothing but air. "—Sam! ThunderCats! Ok? ThunderCats!"

It took a minute for the words to register. For the voice to match up. For him to remember telling his dad he wanted a secret password, too, like Dean had, when he was littler. For him to remember telling his dad that he wanted the password to be ThunderCats. Then his feet slowed. 

"Dean's not in there, Sam," his dad said, voice rough. "Ok? He's not in there, Sammy."

His breath shuddered out. His heart pounded. He remembered Dean—still and bloody and expressionless. Dean was never expressionless. 

"I know you think you saw him," Dad said. His forehead pressed into the back of Sam's head, his voice close and warm. "But I promise you, he's not here, Sammy. Ok? He’s not here. Can you believe me?"

Sam's throat clicked when he swallowed. His voice came out small. "He's really not here? Really not—" His throat closed around the word _dead._ Saying it would make it real, more real than the body he couldn't see any more that Dad said wasn't there. If he didn't say it, maybe Dad could unmake it. Bring Dean back.

"Really, really," Dad said. "You ready to get out of here, buddy?"

Sam nodded. 

Dad put him down, got him turned around and walking with an arm around his shoulders. He couldn't get Dean out of his head, though. He'd been so still. Even when Dean slept, he wasn't that still. His chest would rise and fall, and his fingers would twitch, and if Sam looked really close, he could see his eyeballs moving behind his lids like he was reading really fast. 

But that Dean hadn't done any of that. His eyes had been open and his hands hadn't moved, and Sam's chest had ached waiting for Dean's to expand, to contract, so he could breathe, too. 

"Dad?" he asked, twisting around in his dad's grip. "Are you sure that wasn't Dean?" It had looked like Dean.

"I'm sure," Dad answered. 

Sam locked out his knee stumbling down the curb, when the ground was further down than he'd expected, too busy looking over his shoulder to watch where he was going. He couldn't shake the idea that Dean was there. That they were leaving without him. "But maybe you should go check? I mean, what if he's there? We can't leave him, Dad. You didn't see."

"I saw." Dad gripped his shoulder, lifting him up the curb on the other side, then turned him and knelt. His hands held Sam in place, braced him. "I checked, Sammy. That wasn't Dean. I promise, that wasn't Dean."

Then Dad just keep watching him, serious and still holding Sam steady, making the promise stick. Dad was here and real and the dead-Dean got further and further away, until he was just hovering around the edges and hard to see, like after a nightmare, and Sam nodded. 

Dad clapped his shoulder, pushed up, shepherded Sam the remaining feet to the Impala, held open the back door. Sam slowed, seeing the empty front seat. "But what about Dean? Are we going to get him?"

"Yeah, Sam. We'll get him."

Dad pushed, trying to get him in the car, but Sam set his feet. "Where is he, Dad?"

A beat. Sam looked up in time to catch an odd look on Dad's face. "Bobby's," Dad answered. "Faster you get in, kiddo, faster we can get there." Which made sense. They called Uncle Bobby, sometimes, when they needed an adult and Dad wasn't available. 

Except Uncle Bobby would’ve gotten him, too.

Except Dean would’ve insisted on calling Sam as soon as he got out. 

Except Dad's eyes flashed yellow just as Sam was turning to climb into the car. 

Sam flung himself back. "You're not my dad!"

The demon was fast. He snatched Sam around the middle, hauled him up to his chest. But this time, he missed Sam's arms. Sam made fists and pounded the arm holding him, flung his body side-to-side like an eel when the demon tried to grab his arms. He kicked and screamed and scratched and told the demon he wasn't Dad until it got one of Dad's arms around his neck. 

Then his body was pressed to Dad's and Dad's other hand pressed his head forward and he wasn't holding Sam's middle and his feet could brush the floor but not enough and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe and darkness ate at the edges of his vision, at the edges of his brain, and his hands pried and grabbed and dragged against Dad's arm but the demon was stronger than he was. It was stronger and it wasn't long before the darkness ate him all. 

*

He hadn't expected to wake up. He especially hadn't expected to wake up with his arms and legs free in the back seat of the Impala. But maybe the demon didn't have to worry about him trying to escape. Maybe it could pin him to the leather and cut him open without touching him. He shivered at the thought.

"Sammy?" He held himself carefully still at the sound of his father's rough voice. It sounded like him, like he'd been up too long worrying and not talking, but that didn't mean it was really Dad.

_And if it's not? You gonna play opossum until the end of the world, squirt?_

"You with me, buddy?"

Reluctantly, Sam rolled on to his back and tipped his head toward his father. "Yeah," he croaked. He could still remember his dad's arm banded across his neck. The hard line of it. The phantom touch made his throat feel tight, his lungs ache. 

"You think you can tell me what happened?"

His father, yeah—he didn't want to tell the demon. "Wraith," he murmured.

"What's that, buddy?"

With a sigh, he pushed up onto his elbows. Dad's eyes watched him in the rear view, normal and worried, but it was the flash of pale in the foot well that drew his eye, even as his hand touched something that wasn't leather. He looked. 

_Dean._

His fixed eyes stared straight at Sam, his body crunched into the foot well like a broken doll. Horror held Sam for a breathless moment, then bile rushed up his throat. 

He threw himself at the door, numb fingers scrambling at the release. Distantly, he heard Dad yelling but the words weren't important. His body jolted against seat in front of him. Liquid spilled out of his mouth, bathing his lap. He didn't care. The the latch gave. His body fell against the door, forcing it open and dumping him to the ground.

Rocks and twigs bit at his face and arms, barked against his knees and elbows. Pain flashed across his body, but it didn't matter. Dean was dead. Nothing mattered. 

The Impala had stopped ahead of him, skewed almost sideways off the shoulder, three wheels in the grass, but Dean didn't get out to see what was wrong with Sam. He didn’t get out. Dad did. Dad hit the ground running, face twisted with anger. "What the hell is wrong with you? Don't ever jump out of the car when it's moving, Sammy. Do you hear me? Don’t ever!"

As if that mattered. As if anything mattered with Dean dead. Dean, who'd been stuffed into the back of the Impala, limbs twisted haphazardly like he didn't matter, like he was garbage, only Dad never let them throw their fast food wrappers on the floor. He made them put them in the proper place, and he hadn't put Dean in his proper place. 

"Sam—"

Dad's face was in front of him, and Sam swung. He heard bone crunch, felt pain explode through his hand, saw blood gush from his father's nose, and didn't care. "You killed Dean," he raged, and swung again. Again. Again. He couldn't consider that Dad was bigger, stronger, faster, better trained. He couldn't differentiate between his father and the demon. Dean was dead and it was his fault. 

He swung and missed, found empty highway in front of him. "I didn't kill Dean! Sam, stop it! Listen to me!"

He didn't want to listen. He wanted to feel bone break under his fists, wanted blood to run warm under his hands, wanted to break and rend and tear and hurt like he was broken and rended and torn and hurting, and Dad didn't get it. He blocked and blocked, but Sam needed—

Hand suddenly caught, Sam was spun, his arm twisted up behind his back. He threw his weight against it to break free, ignoring the pain that burned through his shoulder. 

"Sam, cut it out!"

He heaved, felt something tear, and then strong arms caught him around his waist, pulled him back into his Dad's chest, and Sam remembered this. He remembered what came next. He dropped his chin, startled when his dad's weight suddenly bore him to the ground. Pinned him. He strained and struggled but he couldn't move him arms, couldn't move his legs. A large hand pressed his head down, ground his face into the earth, and he tasted dirt. 

He barely registered the prick through the surge of panic, the rush of rage that Dad wouldn't let him avenge Dean, so the wave of lethargy took him by surprise, washing him under before he realized it was there.

*

It left him in the Impala. He could feel the engine rumble in his bones, the cool-warm hug of the leather against his back, the groove of it too large from Dean always sitting in the front seat—dwarfing him, but some day he'd be bigger than Dean. His feet fell short of the glove compartment, his hands of the wheel. And Dad wasn't there.

"Bet you wish you'd taken my offer now, hmm, Sammy, m'boy."

He twisted toward the female voice, back to the window, and recognized the woman from the Police Station. Her eyes were yellow. "You killed my mom," he told it, the anger the wave had quenched flaring bright. 

The demon smiled. "Is that your grievance? Poor little Sammy, growing up without his Mommy. Daddy doesn't love him, but at least he always has Dean—oh."

Rage flushed his body hot. In his mind, his heart, he pushed off the seat and wiped that stupid smile off the demon's face with his bare hands, but his arms and legs didn't move. He put all his effort into it, and his body never budged. 

"That's right," the demons sing-songed. "He doesn't. Not anymore."

"Shut up!"

The demon lifted her eyebrows in polite surprise. "I'm sorry. Did you think you were in control of our little tete-a-tete? Hate to break it to you, Sammy, but you're just not strong enough." He gritted his teeth against her sympathetic moue, strained against the air. "Now, if you'd taken my offer. . . ."

"You don't have anything I want!"

"No?" Her lips twisted in a sly smile. "You sure about that?"

The woman was gone before he could respond, and so was the Impala. He turned in place, but there was nothing there except blackness. Then his stomach swooped and it felt like he was turned on his head. 

"Run, Sammy," a low, rasping voice called from the shadows. "Run, run, as fast as you can—"

A clown face lunged at him, suddenly close, and Sam ran. He couldn't hear footsteps behind him, couldn't hear his own footsteps or feel the ground beneath his feet or the air pushing past his face, but he could feel the creature behind him and he couldn't stop running. If he stopped, it would—

_”I need answers, Bobby!”_

The ground dropped out from under him. His heart jumped into his throat. 

Growls surrounded him. He crouched, hand brushing the ground he couldn't see, and strained to hear which direction they were coming from. They edged closer from the left, so he went right. Hot breath hit his face. Long, white teeth snapped in front of his face. 

"Dean!" he yelped, dodging right. They snapped at his heels, their hot, wet breath just behind him. He could feel it, crawling along his skin, close and too close and closer and—

He bounced on Dean's bed, suddenly staring at water-stained popcorn ceiling flat on his back. 

_"—don’t know what to tell you, John. He’s not—”_

Dean burst through the door. "Get up, Sammy! Hurry! We have to move!"

He disappeared as quick as he’d come, moving down the hall. Sam's stomach cramped with dread, but he rolled off the bed and charged after him, breath caught in his throat every second he couldn't see Dean. The hall was a blur, so was the living room, but he caught up with Dean in the foyer, running into his back when the front door stopped him. Dean pulled the door open. 

Frantic barking filled the air, flash of fur and gnashing jaws and blood red eyes. 

Dean slammed the door, pushed Sam back the way they'd come, gasping _go, go, go_ in his ear, his hand an insistent prod against Sam’s back. Sam struggled to move faster, to run harder, but his legs felt heavy and impossible to move. Time seemed to drag forever. 

They reached the back door and Sam twisted both hands around the handle, got it open. Dean bundled them outside, frantic gaze bouncing back and forth, but the yard was empty. They were clear—

_”Listen. I found something in Sam’s pocket. A microfiche—”_

A solid weight slammed into his back, bore him to the ground. Wet breath hissed by his ear, a long tongue whisping by his cheek. He scrambled forward on his elbows, head down to avoid the tongue, every muscle in his body cringing away.

He felt the weight fall away and rolled onto his back. 

Dean's eyes stared down at him, stark and impossibly green in his white face, drawn and scared and young-looking. Blood dripped from the side of his mouth. His mouth opened in a scream. Sam couldn't hear it. He couldn't hear anything. But as he watched, something clawed open Dean's leg, then his chest, his stomach. Blood flowed like a river and Sam couldn't reach him, he couldn't—

"What the fuck is your problem, Sammy?"

He whirled. 

_”What’s wrong with him?_

Found Dean just behind him, seated at a round table, his feet kicked up and textbook in his lap. "Dean?' he gasped.

_”How the hell should I know? Killing the wriath should’ve done the trick”_

"Man," Dean groused. "I know math is scary, but you need to know this shit."

"But you—you—" He'd been dead. He was dead, good as dead. Sam hadn't saved him. "This isn't real."

He backed away. 

Dean watched him go, amused, expectant expression unwavering. He didn't ask what was wrong or come after Sam, and Sam didn't look away until he bumped into the wall. He checked where he was going, then looked back—

A clown stared back at him. A clown with Dean's face and Dean's eyes, but horrible and blank, washed white and red and unnatural and Sam drew breath to scream—

Darkness swirled down his throat, a black throat, a black tornado that felt like a punch to the gut, like being thrown in the air and slammed to the ground and everything went blank.

"How could you, Sammy?" Dean demanded, tears in his voice. But Dean didn't cry. 

Sam opened his eyes. There was a gun in his hand. Dean was on the ground, staring up at Sam, braced to run but he didn't, and he didn't look away. "Dean?"

"You're a monster, Sam. You think I could let you live after what you've done?" 

The gun barked. A neat, red hole bloomed in the center of Dean's head. His face drained of animation. Sam's blood drained right along with it. His arm dropped like his strings had been cut. "This isn't real," he repeated, feeling the desperation swell in his chest, in his gut, feeling it pull his arms and legs. "This isn't real."

"It's real, Sam," his dad's voice said, and Sam's eyes were drawn to his father, standing square and solemn bare feet away. "It's your fault Dean's dead."

"No." He shook his head, backing away—from Dad, from Dean, from the couple he’d killed that stared at him from over Dad’s shoulder, from these things that couldn't be happening. "No, you're lying. Dean's not dead!"

"Are you sure," the woman at his back asked.

Sam whirled. "You're not real."

"Oh, I'm very real, Sammy-boy. Your mind is wide open. I can do anything I want to you.” 

She pressed her thumb to his forehead—through his forehead—and pain exploded through his mind. He screamed, loud and long and silent, like he could force everything inside out. 

Then everything went black.

_We have all the time in the world, Sam. Just you and me._

*

"He can't remember any of this, Bobby." 

"I hear you, John. Lord knows Sam's had it bad as I've ever seen but—wiping his memory? You sure that's the right play here?”

"Dammit, Bobby! It's the only option we have."

"Well, all right, then."

Black.


End file.
